WeissKreuz After The Rain Arc 1, 2, 3
by LoveyouHateyou
Summary: After a catastrophic mission, Weiss are in a mess. Schwarz are on the run from the remnants of Eszet. Schuldig puts in an appearance with Yohji... will they manage to scramble from the wreckage? And perhaps love does not quite conquer all... or does it?
1. Autumn 1

**After The Rain 1 - Autumn**

What happens between the Kapitel after the Powell mission and the beginning of Gluehen? Is mistrust tearing Weiss apart, or can they win through? Does love truly conquer all? And how are Schwarz coping?

**Disclaimer:** This story is not for profit, all rights with their current owners.  
**Warnings:** Spoilers throughout. The boys are foulmouthed. The chibis are no cuties.  
**Rating:** M for male/male affection and references to sex. Don't look for graphic instructions though - you will be disappointed.  
**Pairs **(I would not call them couples):Aya/Yohji (destiny interrupted), Omi/Ken (definitely no sweeties), Crawford/Schuldig (Schuldig has a thing for Yohji though).  
**Disclaimer, warnings and rating valid for all chapters of this story.**

**xxx**

(This chapter is Weiss focused.)

**xxx**

"Yo, Yohji," Omi knocked lightly at the half-open door to Yohji's bedroom.

Yohji lounged on his futon, smoking a cigarette while leafing through a magazine. A lazy reggae tune was chugging from the stereo, and he reached out to turn it down. "Hey, chibi, what's up?" he returned without looking up.

Omi slid into the room and folded into a crouch by Yohji's side. Yohji slapped the magazine shut and shook bleach-blond locks out of his face to crack a patently false smile at the young man. "Beg to kindly get off my back, Omitchi. That stuff's not for you to see."

Omi laughed. "Dontcha think it's a bit late for that?" He pulled at a strand of blond hair, and Yohji cringed.

"Hell, yeah, I wasn't the best example now, was I?" He took a deep pull at his cigarette and wrapped himself into a cloud of smoke, hiding his eyes.

Omi smiled and tugged again before letting go and resting his thin hand on Yohji's shoulder in a friendly, comradely gesture. "You did fine, Yotan."

Yohji's hand trembled slightly as he shoved the magazine aside and rolled onto his back. "So?"

"I found this," Omi pressed a piece of stiff paper into his hand and closed his fingers round it. "Thought you might like to keep it."

Yohji lifted it and stared. A photograph. Of him and Aya, looking incredibly young in jeans and fancy t-shirts, kissing in front of a graffitti-spattered wall. He remembered Omi snapping them – they had chased after him, in vain of course because the chibi had decided to play catch-ball with the camera and thrown it to Ken, who had caught it with soccer-honed skill…

With a chortling sound, somewhere between a snort and a laugh, Yohji let the picture flutter to his chest and lifted one arm to rub over his eyes with the back of his hand. He left it there, long hard fingers covering his eyes and shading his expression.

"Yohji," Omi said, a softness to his voice that hurt more than the businesslike tone he had adopted since he had confronted them with Kritiker's decision to disband their team. Omi was the only one they wanted to retain, to take Persia's place, the rest of them were free of their contractual obligations.

Discarded, Yohji had remarked acidly, without surprise, into the stunned silence that had followed Omi's revelation. Aya had shrouded himself into frosty stillness, and Ken… well, instead of flying into a rage, he had fallen silent too, a sadness in his eyes that did not suit his hot temperament.

"Is ok, chibi," Yohji said quietly, "really, don't worry. It's not the end of the world now, is it?" Never mind that he had no idea what to do next, or why, or that Ken had not been himself since that meeting, and that Aya had drifted from them apparently without trying to hold on. Not even to Yohji. Especially not to Yohji.

xxx

After the cataclysm of the tower, they had scrambled from the sea, half-drowned, badly hurt, ill, confused and utterly lost. Sharply reminded of Crawford's cynical words, we all know too much…

They had clashed, fought, only to find they had both lost and won. Won through with their lives, but lost all they had: money, a place to be, their purpose. Thought they had seen Schwarz go down in the flaming, drowning inferno, but it was so unlike Crawford to sink with his ship that they found it difficult to believe.

Even felt something like a sense of loss at the lack of a true adversary. They had grown accustomed to one another, known each other as one spiteful lover might know another.

They had limped back to the Koneko, to find it closed and bare of flowers, the old woman gone, the blinds down, the doors locked and barred with iron grids, a for-sale sign in the window. Ken had picked the locks of the backdoor, and they had holed up to lick their wounds and try to find back to reality. To realise it was difficult without the framework of rules and jobs thrust at them, without good pay, their business accounts closed and all records wiped.

They had officially ceased to be, and the funds in Omi's private account were melting away like snow in spring. With their past records destroyed and no new IDs, they were in limbo. Nobodies, non-existing, caught in a timelag between past and future, in a surreal world of not-being.

Omi was the first one to stir, though they had not realised it at the time – he quietly used old contacts and began his negotiations with what was left of Kritiker. Yohji went out to live off some willing girlfriends for a while, taking on some smaller investigation jobs along the lines. Aya brooded in his room, locking himself in for days on end, going for food and whatever else he needed while the others were out. Ken spent much time sitting in the dark, empty shop, staring at the bare walls until he finally went out to the park to play soccer with some kids. At least it revived him somewhat.

Once, Aya's sister came to the shop. Ken and Omi were out, Yohji making coffee in the dank kitchen. She walked around, tried the front door, knocked, tried to peer through the shutters, then walked around the back to see whether she could get into the house. Yohji saw her and went to open, but before he could turn the knob, Aya was behind him, silent and starkly white in the gloomy light, his hand clamping hard over Yohji's. "Don't," he hissed into Yohji's ear.

But, Yohji meant to say when he felt something sharp and cool against the vein at his neck. So he remained silent, motionless, until Aya's sister gave up calling and knocking and went away, wiping her eyes as she left.

Bastard, Yohji had snarled at Aya when she had gone, but Aya had only shot him a glare and retreated back to his room.

Once, Yohji – hair dyed dark, black shades hiding most of his face – believed to glimpse a flash of wild copper hair in the stream of pedestrians on the street. An odd, dragging sensation tightened his chest as he tried to push towards the owner of this striking mop of hair, but was swallowed up by the mass of people that nudged and pushed about their daily business. Their normal lives: work, home, school…

Many times, Yohji would wake up, sweaty, alone on his futon on the bare floorboards, to hear the echo of his yells, this nightmare or another still sitting heavily on his chest. He would take some endless, timeless moments to try and find to himself, then grope for the bottle of whiskey he had begun to keep by his bedside, to drink a few swigs and smoke a cigarette, hands shaking ash onto the comforter, the dirty floor, uncaring, unseeing.

Some times, he would go back to sleep. Others, he would spend lying awake, staring wide-eyed and vacantly at the spider-webbed ceiling, and trying to ignore the soreness of his heart. He longed for warmth, closeness, hope. He longed for Aya. Who would not touch, let alone kiss him, and hardly spoke to any of them.

xxx

"So whatcha gonna do, Yohji?" Omi enquired, fishing for the cigarette that grew a long, bending stalk of ash as it idled between Yohji's long fingers.

Yohji let him take it and shrugged lightly. "Life goes on, ne? I'll fall to my feet, as usual. Get some contract work, perhaps. Marry…"

Omi almost choked, and Yohji cracked one green eye open and laughed, less bitter now. "Nah… well, maybe… have kids…" He lost his breath and turned his face away. This was cutting him deeper than he had anticipated. Asuka… he had wanted children with her. They both had planned, dreamed, loved. That had been before his world was washed away for the first time in a wave of crimson agony. Before Aya plunged into his life, dragging this red tide further into his mind and heart, and with it the fire and the pain of those memories. He had been unable, and later unwilling, to forget, believed himself strong enough to carry on. Living. Loving.

Omi watched, his small hand rubbing circles on Yohji's skin. "He's not worth it," he said coolly. "He doesn't understand what you're offering him. He'd kill you today if it would make him feel better."

"You never really liked him, did you?" Yohji murmured vaguely, staring at a damp patch on the wall, beneath the windowsill.

Omi pushed out his lower lip. "At the beginning, he scared the shit out of me." He reached over Yohji's shoulder and pushed the cigarette between his lips for a breath of smoke, then took it back to share. "Later, I realised he was just after one thing. Now he's had his revenge. He's empty. He's got nothing to give you."

Darkness. The darkness within Aya, beneath the layers of brilliance and colours, teflon and leather. It had risen and spread, beginning to fill him and swallow up the last shreds of light a long time ago, until nothing was left of Ran. Yohji shivered, and Omi's hand stilled. "I didn't want to tell the others," he said, returning the cigarette to Yohji who took it and finished it with a last, deep pull. "But Kritiker agreed to let me pick my new team, with very few restrictions."

"Excluding ex-Weiss members," Yohji remarked flatly and squashed the cigarette stub on the floor.

"Hai," Omi agreed, "with one exception. Look, if you wanna work for me, you're welcome."

Yohji remained silent, and Omi heaved a sigh. "As long as you cut your ties with him. It's what he wants anyway, Yotan. We can help him leave, set up elsewhere, start over and do whatever he likes. It's a chance. Ken took it."

"And is he happy, Omitchi?" Yohji asked softly over his shoulder.

The silence that followed grew long and thick, with Omi sitting motionless and Yohji not stirring. Finally, Omi cleared his throat and got up, groaning a bit as muscles unfolded from the uncomfortable crouch. He stretched, bones crackling softly, and bent to quickly muss Yohji's hair. "We all have to try to make the best of the situation. I cannot help anyone if I don't help myself first. Think about it, hm?" Sounding almost pleading.

"No need," Yohji replied, rolling to his back again so he could meet cool blue eyes with warm, bitter green ones. "It's not something I could consider. You shouldn't have offered."

"I… I didn't mean to insult you," Omi started, colour washing into his face until it glowed almost scarlet.

"Nah, chibi, I know that." Yohji propped himself up on one elbow, then scrambled to his feet, pressing his hand to the wall for balance as he unfolded his lanky frame. He wiped his face and managed a smile. "Just make your way and stop fretting 'bout us, huh? We'll manage."

xxx


	2. Autumn 2

**After The Rain 1 - Autumn **

(Yohji/Schuldig focused)  
**Additional Warning: This chapter is somewhat more graphic than the others.**

**xxx**

When Yohji returned from shopping for groceries, charging the basket to Omi's credit card, he believed to see that flash of orange hair again. He put it down to rising madness, the copious use of liquor and tobacco and other things he picked up at dodgy street corners, plus his increasingly intense nightmares.

When Yohji went out that evening because he could not bear the atmosphere at their hideout any longer, he was still thinking of that vision.

When Yohji stumbled out of the cheap club near the docks in the small hours of the next morning, strong hands grabbed his upper arms from behind, and as he began to struggle, orange hair fell over his shoulder and blew into his face in the stinking breeze. He nearly lost it when cool, hard lips touched a kiss to his cheek.

"Why, guten Morgen, Bali," a familiar voice rasped softly into his ear.

And he let himself fall, against the long, firm body behind him, into the embrace of wiry arms, and the smell of tobacco and booze. "Schuldig," he gasped, turning, only to meet those lips in a searing kiss.

"Yohji." A coarse whisper against his neck, hands all over him, teeth nipping none-too-gently, tugging and marking his skin. "Couldn't help it, had to find you. Had to know…"

"Idiot," Yohji breathed, tangling and fisting swathes of red hair that smelled sharp and wanton. "How…"

He allowed Schuldig to shove him up against the wall of the club, just around the corner from the entrance, and let his hands drop to the redhead's waist, meeting hot skin under cool cotton where the tee-shirt had slid out of the younger man's jeans.

"Did I find you?" Schuldig let out a breathy laugh, in between burning kisses onto Yohji's cheeks, mouth, neck. "It was a bet – I said you'd be back to where no one would go looking for you, Brad said you'd be close but not there – well, he's not always right."

"Craw- ouch, don't bite! – Crawford's alive?"

"I won," Schuldig gasped, ignoring the question and slipping his hands down Yohji's flanks, right into his pants. "Man, I missed you. Missed sanity, yanno?" He quirked a grin and tossed back his hair with a flourish, but beneath the smile and the sparkle in his bright eyes, Yohji could see darkness. Swirling, greedy, threatening to swallow him alive. The same darkness he had seen consuming Aya. Only that Schuldig, unable to hold in his mind, let him see, let him touch, sought him out to cling to him.

"Stop it, Schuldig, he's gonna kill-"

"No, he won't, he's too sick to move, let alone murder me, or you. Can'tscrew me now, either, he's out cold on a hospital bed, racking up bills for me to bloody pay."

Schuldig was paying for Crawford's hospital bills. Yohji felt oddly touched, like by a déjà vu of the weirder sort.

"We'll have to move soon, he and Far and the boy, plus my stupid self," Schuldig gasped, wrapping his hand round Yohji's soft flesh, "Man, don't I turn you on at all?"

Yohji pulled him close, trapping his arm and cupping the back of his neck. "Move?"

"You think they liked the stunt we pulled on them?" Schuldig snapped into Yohji's hair. He shivered and moved nervously against Yohji, who pressed a bit harder to still him. "I have to sort us out, and it's always been Brad doing this sorta thing, and my head's bloody hurting all the fucking time, and he's just dumped all this bullshit on me and decided to have a go at conking out…"

"Hey," Yohji murmured, raking through strands of bright copper, "calm down now, will you?" He stroked, surprised at the strange sensation that began to fill him, replacing the sudden wash of pleasure from before with something warmer, something that felt oddly soothing. It startled him enough that he refused to think about it.

"Yohji," Schuldig said, his voice muffled by Yohji's hair. "Yohji, screw me. I need you to screw me or I swear I'll go potty like Far. Scares me shitless, that…"

Yohji clamped his arm around Schuldig's waist a bit harder. "Still," he ordered softly, "be still now."

And Schuldig complied, moulding against him, heartbeat against heartbeat, breathing tightly, limbs and body taut with want and shaking. Yohji passed his hand through the soft strands that felt so different from Aya's wiry mop of hair: rich and soft like women's hair, pliant and silky. "You want me to play at being Crawford for a bit, huh?"

"You can't be him," came the surprisingly sharp retort, "no one can be him. But I need a good lay, and you could do with one, I guess."

"How would you know," Yohji murmured, and Schuldig laughed quietly against him, a shudder running through his long limbs.

"C'mon, that redhead of yours is an icicle, and you'd not be here with me now if you were all that happy. Bet he dropped you like hot shit now that he has what he was after."

"You're one nasty piece of work," Yohji countered, but his tone lacked force, and when Schuldig only clung tighter, he sighed and mussed his long hair a bit more. "So, you have a place in mind?"

"You see the steps over there, by that warehouse? Got a box in the basement; that's where I live for the time being, and little Nagi, and Far. Not the best place to be, but it covers our ass well enough. Enough thinking minds around 'cos of the club and the docks. Brad told us to hide among the multitudes… something about a splinter in some neighbour's eye… Far knew, could see him smirk, but he wouldn't talk. Hate it when Brad blabbers in riddles, but that's what I took it for… hope they don't flush us out 'fore he heals enough to travel."

All that in one long breathless rush. Yohji held him, felt the thinness of flesh over sharp bones, the slackness of clothes meant to cover a fuller frame, and suddenly he realised the musky odour had been the dank smell of cellar and poverty. "The boy lives in that hole with you?"

Schuldig managed a shrug. "We all made it," he said, "somehow. I stole a jacket for Far, and he's in it and so damn silent, it freaks us out, and Nagi's complaining about being sick all the time. Hardly eats a thing and just keeps fading. He's down to energy drinks and protein shakes now."

"Not that I could pity you," Yohji said quietly.

"Phew, no need, Bali. I'm not gonna cry at your shoulder or something." Schuldig laughed, an ugly, cold little croak. "We're Schwarz, we've always been coping better than you lot. Now, how about us, huh?"

Yohji caressed his hair, sliding his fingers through it, over and again. Schwarz, stronger than Weiss as long as they were one tight unit, but now, with one of them out of order, they were weaker than each ex-Weiss. All or nothing, he thought, drinking in the sensation of the feverish body pressing against him, and aware of the half-hearted arousal in his own pants. "You hooking now for a living?"

"You couldn't pay me, stupid. I'm Brad's. I work for our friends who have been hospitable enough to let us stay, and before you ask, I'm not down to THAT kinda work."

Yakuza, Yohji thought, unsurprised; even this they had in common though Omi had decided against using their connections unless they had absolutely no choice. Schuldig rubbed against him. "Please," he suddenly rasped, "let me have you, or have me, whatever, just don't go away now, hear me? Don't go now, c'mon, an hour, or half, just-"

"Stop that," Yohji hissed, his hand clawing into a bunch of red strands. "I will, so quit that already." And let himself be dragged, post-haste, down those dirty stairs that stank of urine and stale vomit, into the blackness beneath the building, into the smells of unwashed bodies, mouldy food, excrement and rats. Sensed the presence of others as Schuldig backed him up against a wall and began to tear off his clothes, then his own, until they were both naked and heated and sweaty against one another, kissing wildly and with desperate abandon.

"Schuldig?" a thin, childlike voice came from the darkness, and he broke the kiss and turned his face towards the sound.

"Shhh," he whispered, "it's me, kiddo, only me having a fuck, go back to sleep, huh? I'll be done in a moment."

Something clinked, a soft grunt followed by shuffling noises, and he let go of Yohji to melt into the blackness. "Hey, told you to stay put, Far… no, let me give you this… take it, idiot, yeah, like that, that's much better… won't be long now, I promise, we'll be moving soon… now be good, huh? You don't wanna scare Nagi."

"Schuldig," the boy said threadily, "I feel sick."

Some more rustling. "Shut up, kiddo, here, have some water, told you to keep the fucking blanket over, take the damn medicine or I can't help you."

Hollow coughing, then, "He's talking at me when you're not here."

"It's just rubbish. He's babbling shit all the time, you know that. Now, go to sleep so I can have my fuck, and then I'll be fine and can take proper care of you two fools."

"You're so damn sick," Nagi wheezed. Schuldig laughed.

And then he was back and all over Yohji, they fairly fell to the floor that was bare concrete, cold and dirty and damp. Schuldig tugged Yohji on top of him and devoured him in ravenous kisses. Yohji had Schuldig's pants off and was inside him in a matter of moments, dry, raw, burning, his knees scorched by the rough ground beneath, and they were both hissing and grunting with the crudeness of it all. "That how Crawford does you?" Yohji gritted as he shoved into the younger man. "Like it rough?"

"You got no idea," came the choked reply.

"Loves him," a low growl rolled through the blackness around them.

Schuldig let out a sharp laugh. "Stop it already, Far," he ranted, pushing his hips up sharply against Yohji's thrusts. It burned, almost-dry skin scraping together, tearing, chafing, bleeding.

"Kill," Farfarello rumbled.

"That – ah – would please – ngh – please God," Schuldig gasped harshly. "Please – Him, Far, please him, gettit? You – wanna be – ah – His little angel? Ay, dammit, oh, hell, ahhh…"

And when Yohji felt release rip through him in a white-hot wave, it flashed through his mind that surely, he was about to go as insane as all of Schwarz together.

xxx


	3. Autumn 3

**After The Rain Arc - Autumn **

(Schwarz focused, Crawford and Schuldig)

**xxx**

Schuldig pulled the door to the small white room shut behind him. For a moment, he tried to sense the stillness, beyond the muffled bustle of the hospital and the unceasing flood of dreams and voices that assaulted his head, beyond the splitting headache that made him nearly blind and dumb. It was like trying to collect water with a sift; he gave up after a few heartbeats of desperate concentration.

The blind of the single window was closed, the light dimmed to a diffuse shine that reflected dully on a metal bedstead, a rack with a drip, and a white laquered nightstand – and on the glasses of the man on the bed as he slowly propped himself up on his elbows.

"Stay put, Brad," Schuldig said and walked to the stool by the bedside that had been his place for endless weeks. He plopped down, reached for his jeans pocket and pulled out a packet of cigarettes. "Wanna smoke?"

"No," came the hoarse reply.

"You look like crap," Schuldig said, lighting up and running his gaze over Crawford. "Your hair's gone grey." And his face was grey, drained of all colour, with black shadows around his eyes and lines of pain engraved on hollowed features.

Crawford dragged himself up against the headboard. "I will leave here in a couple of days. You better be ready." He looked old and wasted, and utterly exhausted; his formerly glossy dark hair had turned almost white within the few weeks since the tower, but the line of his mouth, harsh and thin, and the voice – steel and velvet – were just as Schuldig knew him. Determined and unforgiving.

"We're as ready as it gets," he grated, fiddling with the cigarette.

Crawford regarded him, eyes hidden behind the glare of his glasses. "There are painkillers in the bedside cabinet. Take them." And he was as lucid as always, from the first time he had woken up after having almost drowned and faded from bloodloss. Crawford simply did not do things by halves; his body had resisted the temptation to just die, and so he had willed it to wake up and function. "Schuldig, take the damn things."

Schuldig swallowed a groan. "I..."

"Now. On your way out, go to the canteen. Eat. Let them put it on the bill."

"We haven't got enough-"

"This is not the time to argue. There's a locker room at the end of this hallway, near the stairs. Go, take a shower, and find something clean to wear for yourself and the other two. Take a couple of sports drinks from the vending machine for Nagi, and come back here to collect the rest of my IV bags for Far. They contain sedatives. Pack if there is anything to take. Clear every trace of us from where you are staying. We will have to crowd into your old apartment for a few days while I meet up with Kritiker."

Bleary-eyed, Schuldig stared at him. "With Kritiker? You're ill..."

Crawford sagged a bit. "We will manage."

Schuldig swallowed hard. "Brad..."

"Don't go mushy on me," came the quiet reply. Crawford pulled the glasses off his face, brown eyes clear and sharp in his ravaged features. The shadow of a smile settled in the corners of his mouth. "And wash your hair, or cut it. You look a mess."

xxx 

Nagi slept on the floor by the window. Farfarello had curled up in the corner by the door, sealed in his straightjacket. Schuldig sat with his back against the door and listened to the frantic whispers that emanated even from the haze of sedation... "Killed... killed... I killed..."

"You didn't," he said, a twinge of despair to his tone.

"I killed... I saw... killed... blood..."

Schuldig kicked him lightly in the ribs. "Rubbish. They put that in your head, Far. Stop that shit now, will ya?"

"I did, I know I killed, I killed them all, killed, killed, killed..."

"Damn you, Far, shut! UP!" Schuldig burst out, with another, firmer kick. "Brad should be here by now, hell, why didn't he let me pick him up?"

"Because you would have fucked up," Nagi said weakly, ending with a dry, hollow coughing fit.

"Shut up, kiddo," Schuldig snapped and threw one of his shoes at him. It fell short and hit the floor with a listless plop.

With a snort of disgust, Nagi dodged and tried to melt into the wall. "You have been sitting there for days," he sniped at Schuldig, "you are stupid. He said he would come here, so he will."

"Yaddah, yaddah," Schuldig snapped, "you were a good boy while you were ill."

"Kill... kill..." Farfarello strained against his bonds, then slackened and writhed a bit. "Tell me I did... I know..." That it was not a chimera, a fantasy made come true in his mind alone until he would go out to seek more blood. Real blood, and the thrill of killing, of trying to find inside those slaughtered bodies what he was seeking, chasing and forever losing...

"I am still sick," Nagi protested querulously.

"Tell me," Farfarello breathed, "Tell me..."

"Then stop being a prick, kiddo," Schuldig groaned. "Far, SHUT UP NOW, you're driving me crazy!"

Nagi chuckled, then a coughing fit racked him, and when it finally frittered away in a rattling whine, he pulled his blanket up over his head and tried to lay still.

A long, black silence, taut as a coiled spring, with nothing but their breathing – Nagi painfully wheezing for air, Schuldig puffing at his cigarette, Farfarello's soft sighs, and then a whisper, "Tell me..."

"Shut the FUCK UP!" Schuldig yelled and jumped up. "You're a bloody moron! Stupid retard! You didn't kill them! You-"

"I saw..."

And suddenly, Schuldig collapsed into a crouch and leaned over Farfarello, his bright copper hair falling in greasy strands over the scarred white face. "Look at me," he grated, tugging at Farfarello's shoulder, "I said, look!"

One intense golden eye glared up at him – and widened in surprise because Schuldig held a gleaming new knife up before him. "Here. Pretty, huh?" He gave the blade a lick. "Hmmm... I'll let you have it if you kill me. You killed them, you kill me, is all the same shit."

"Kill you?"

Schuldig unbuckled the straps that confined Farfarello's arms and pressed the knife into his hand. "There, do it, fuck me up, waste me, carve me to bits."

He gathered his hair in one hand and lifted it away from his neck. Pink scars across his throat, fading guides to where a cut should sink into the hard flesh, severing tendons and cartilage amid a deluge of blood... "DO! IT!"

Farfarello stared blankly, from the knife to Schuldig, then his golden gaze glazed over as it caught on the pink line, and he slowly moistened his lips even as he reached out to reverently trace that line with the tip of his knife, then he leaned forward, wrapped his arms around the redhead and pressed a soft kis onto his white throat. "Like to," he murmured, before glancing up and meeting Schuldig's blue glare. "Blood..."

In his corner, Nagi sat up, his wheeze turning into something resembling sobs, but he said nothing as he wrapped his arms around his knees and began to rock back and forth.

More kisses, warm, trembling. "So pretty." Then Farfarello sagged. "Can't."

"Can't!" Schuldig parroted, shoving him back violently. "Can't! Idiot! Sucker!" He clasped Farfarello's wrist and yanked the hand with the blade close, the steel touching his throat, marking, almost grazing, but Farfarello's resistance was made of iron muscles and an intense will. "No? That's why I'm not tellin' you, stupid!" Schuldig let go, and Farfarello tumbled back against the wall, the knife skidding over the floor to a slowly spinning halt near Nagi. "You didn't kill them 'cos you loved them!"

"Can't you let him have his peace?" Nagi said from his corner, his tone cold and unnerved. "Just tell him what he wants to hear. You'd do him a favour."

"Shut up, Nagi, it's not true and I won't-"

"Man, a lie to get him to calm down and get us all some sleep," the boy groaned, "What does it matter?"

"No lie," Farfarello growled softly, and Nagi turned his back and flipped a bird at both of them.

"No lie." Farfarello grabbed a fistful of copper hair and tugged hard, Schuldig fell and did not resist when he came nose to nose with his team mate. "Tell me."

Schuldig bit his lip. The painkillers had worn off – he had swallowed too many at once, grown fuzzy and vague, managed to haul Farfarello and Nagi into his oldapartment, and had lost track of time. Now the haze in his head thinned and the headaches began to grow worse again.

"Tell-"

"No," Schuldig gasped.

The grinding of the lock startled them, and then Crawford stepped in and carefully locked up behind him. He sat on his haunches by Farfarello, pulled Schuldig back by his hair and bored his lens-free gaze into the golden eye. "Schuldig will give you some more sedatives," he said quietly. "You will take them and go to sleep." He pressed his hand on Farfarello's forehead while Schuldig groped in the pockets of Crawford's coat, found a box with ready syringes and jammed one into Farfarello's shoulder. Crawford held the golden glare that began to fog and lose focus. "Sleep," he ordered softly, "now."

And the golden eye closed, Farfarello slumped into himself.

"Buckle him back in," Crawford said, releasing the handful of red hair.

He went to bend over Nagi who gave him a dark glance and tugged his blanket firmer around himself. "I'm fine."

Crawford nodded. "Then turn to the wall and get some rest."

He turned back to Schuldig and pulled him up to kiss him. "Would you sleep with me now?"he said softly into Schuldig's ear.

Schuldig writhed and met Crawford's steady gaze with a wide-eyed stare. "Brad, you gonna die before me?"

A long silence, with only Nagi rustling uncomfortably about under his blanket, and Schuldig fidgeting nervously under Crawford's scrutiny, trying to prod into his thoughts only to find nothing, dark brown eyes blank, the expression on his pale face carefully guarded neutrality.

"Brad," Schuldig gasped in exasperation, "tell me! I'm gonna go nuts if you do, hell say something now – you've seen it, haven't you? You fuckin' know!"

"No," Crawford cut him off. "And don't start blubbering; we cannot cry."

"I... my head," the younger man wailed softly.

Crawford drew him close and pressed both hands against his temples. "Better?" he murmured after a moment.

"I'm going bananas," Schuldig groaned quietly.

"You are not," Crawford told him, hands slipping over sharp cheekbones, a skinny neck, and coming to rest on bony shoulders. "You are not, you hear me? We will heal, all of us."

"Promise?"

A small smile played over thin lips. "Promise. Now take off those rags."

xxx


	4. Autumn 4

**After The Rain Arc 1 - Autumn **

(Crawford/Schuldig focused)  
**Additional Warning: This chapter is a little more graphic. References to SM/assisted self-harm.**

**xxx**

Schuldig had picked up the knife and now, sprawled beneath Crawford's solid weight, he pressed it into his hand. "Hurt me," he whispered.

Crawford leaned down and pressed a kiss on his brow, and then he drew the razor sharp steel down the inside of Schuldig's arm in one long, smooth motion, cleverly avoiding the large veins. The cut was rather deep and began to ooze blood. Schuldig's eyes drifted shut, he arched up and groaned deeply.

Kisses, on his closed eyes, his cheeks, his mouth, his brow, one cut for every kiss, one kiss for every gash in his skin. Blood soaking into stained sheets. The fire of raw flesh against coarse fabric and bare skin, sweat searing the cuts as Crawford painted his body crimson...

"More... now," Schuldig gasped, "do it now... just like that..."

"I don't want to get bruised," Crawford said, tracing a slick hand between his thighs, "and I don't want to kill you." Then he was inside with oneswift push, and Schuldig yelped and bit his lips bloody not to scream with pain. Crawford saw his face twist and yanked him up into a hard embrace, fisting into bright hair, melting into blood and heat and pained gasps.

"Why... do... you... ahhh... want me?" Schuldig yapped, eyes snapping open to meet dark, cold fire.

"Because," Crawford growled.

And Schuldig threw his head back and began shaking with soundless laughter. "I... had... Bali fuck me..."

Another hard thrust, then Crawford stilled, clawing into Schuldig's shoulders to hold him down and motionless. "I know."

"Who was I, before Rosenkreuz?"

"I cannot remember."

"That's a lie."

"So what? We are who we are now."

"You ever been bottom, Brad?"

Nails bit into white skin and drew more blood, but then Crawford slowly opened his fingers and smoothed aside swathes of sticky copper. "Look at me," he said, his voice cool and low. "Schuldig, look-at-me!"

Hooded, dazed blue met hard brown, the frosty fire burning deep and steady. "It was make or break. No one breaks me. No one, and not six, or ten, or more. I picked you for this team because you were still fighting when I saw you first. Like hell. That makes you like me. Same for Nagi, and even for Farfarello. Unlike them, if you stop, I will drop you."

And without waiting for a reaction, he pressed the younger man close again, nestling Schuldig's face against his neck, and finished them both with just a few firm thrusts. They dropped back into the dirty sheets, and within moments, Schuldig was about to slip into oblivion, pumped full with painkillers, exhausted beyond words, and silent.

Crawford, still in black jeans and a now dirty dress shirt, got up to fetch a damp towel from the shower room, wiped himself down and then began to clean Schuldig off. Whose eyes drifted open again and fuzzily followed the long, firm strokes, bunched rag turning rusty red as Crawford wiped pale limbs and a skinny stomach. "Brad?"

"Be still." Any other time, Crawford would have complained that the mess had ruined his shirt. Instead, he continued his work until he was done, sat back on his heels and ran an appraising gaze over Schuldig's naked form. "It does not help that you do not take proper care of yourself," he said, brown eyes meeting blue ones again. "Get up, put on some clothes – I brought a bag full, over there by the door."

"I'm bushed," Schuldig tried, even as he heaved himself up and lowered his feet to the floor. Crawford said nothing, so he rummaged through the bag, heaping its contents onto the floor, found a pair of blue denims and a grey tee and pulled them on.

Crawford took his arm by the elbow. "Now come."

They took the elevator to the roof and stepped out into a muggy night. Crawford pulled Schuldig to a corner of the roof from where they could overlook the city, glittering with lights, restless and heaving. "Over there."

Schuldig looked into the direction of Crawford's nod, and gasped. Flames rose into the light-scattered darkness from a burning building only a few streets away, amid the helpless bustle of fire-engines and ambulances. His mind picked up scraps of chaos, panic, cries... and he recognised the hospital where Crawford had stayed.

"Man, Brad..." He swallowed. "I worked to pay your damn bills there... That was the best I could do. Did you hate it that much?"

He looked from the blazing inferno up to Crawford who gave him a cool smile. "It came in handy. I promised you something special if we'd make it."

"Oh..."

Crawford drew him close and pressed another harsh kiss onto his neck, just below the jawline. "I keep my promises."

Schuldig let go of a long sigh and looked back into those flames. Apart from the odd flit of something, his mindhad fallen strangely, pleasantlysilent. He was so tired he could have dropped instantly.

Crawford sat down and pulled Schuldig with him, settling the younger man against his solid body. "Sleep now if you want."

And Schuldig leaned back against him with a vague smile, the shine of the flames warming him from the inside, and the silence that was Crawford flooding his mind. This time, sleep came to him easily and without dreams.

Tomorrow could wait. When they were ready to face it, it would be filled with the horrors of yesterday.  
Endless, endless time... the fires of hell. Eternity.

And even eternity could wait.

xxx

Continued in: **After The Rain 2 – The End Of A Lifetime**


	5. The End Of A Lifetime 1

**After The Rain 2 -The End of a Lifetime**

Set at the end of OVA2 (Strafe), before Gluehen.

After the mission to destroy a renegade general with world-dominating ambition nearly ends in a catastrophy, Weiss are in a mess. Schwarz are still on the run from the remnants of Eszet. Schuldig puts in an appearance with Yohji... will theymanage to scramble from the wreckage of betrayal, mistrust and broken passion? What will happen to Kritiker? And perhaps love does not conquer all... or does it?

**Disclaimer:** This story is not for profit, all rights with their current owners.  
**Warnings:** Spoilers throughout. The boys are foulmouthed. The chibis are no cuties.  
**Rating:** **M** for male/male affection and references to sex. Don't look for graphic instructions though - you will be disappointed.  
**Pairs **(I would not call them couples):Aya/Yohji (destiny interrupted), Omi/Ken (definitely no sweeties), Crawford/Schuldig (Schuldig has a thing for Yohji though).  
**Notes** at the end.  
**Disclaimer, warnings and rating valid for all chapters of this story.**

**xxx**

(This chapter is Weiss focused.)

**xxx**

"You didn't trust me," Yohji said, his breath a puff of mist in the clear winter air. Clad in nothing but a pair of plain black shorts, he sat in the entrance of the caravan, one leg dangling, the other one drawn up, one elbow propped on it so he could finger the cigarette that he was smoking, the other hand idly playing with a half-finished harigane**1** in his lap. He sported a thick bandage around the arm that limply rested on his thigh, and a large taped wad of cotton on one side of his abdomen, another one on his upper thigh that was bared by the shorts. Reminders of Omi's darts.

"Should I have?" Sitting crosslegged on the damp ground just outside, a couple of yards away, with his back to Yohji, Aya kept busy cleaning his katana. Yohji watched him through curls of smoke, his green eyes hooded. Aya's growing, carefully dyed hair was sliding over his shoulders in soggy strands – he had washed it before the bathroom got crowded – his bare back gleamed white in the watery morning light. He wore nothing but his favourite black drawstring trousers and a bandage around his lower body where Ken's claws had ripped into him.

Lazily, Yohji played with the finished end of the harigane that sported a small piece of wood for a handle, fixed to the wire by means of looping and twisting the metal. A paring knife and a half-whittled second handle lay by Yohji's side amid a sprinkling of wood shavings. "You heard last night?" he jabbed into the silence that emanated from Aya.

They had not coped too well with their latest mission. Ken had become withdrawn, his occasional outbursts of temper more violent than ever and ticked off by as little as a pair of secateurs in the wrong place. Yohji was smoking non-stop and occasionally just stopped whatever he was doing to stare blankly at his hands that had not been very steady recently. Aya's silence was thick enough to be cut with a knife, and Omi had nightmares.

Every night.

"Aa." Aya kept polishing, dabbing a soft rag into the jar with grinding paste, smoothing out over the pale blue steel, applying pressure as he slid the cloth over the cold metal in even, forceful motions, his muscles bunching and stretching under pale skin.

Beautiful skin. Kissable skin.  
Any other day. Any other night.

Another deep pull at the cigarette, an angry hiss when glowing ash burned into the filter and Yohji's scarred fingertips. He tossed the stub away and fumbled in the front of his shorts for the packet and lighter as he shook his head unwillingly. "You were playing with all of us, Ayan."

"I had my orders," came the terse reply, though Yohji caught the tiny twinge of exasperation. They had gone over this countless times, once they had gathered themselves enough from the shock of that night. Enough to begin to think, analyse. And question.

"You have a head to think," Yohji said flatly.

"We swore-"

"Yeah." Click, suck in smoke, breathe out slowly.

Aya flipped the sword in his lap and dabbed another glob of paste onto the steel. "You broke your loyalty to your employer, just as much as the other two."

"I..." A gasp, and then Yohji flicked some ash off in an angry gesture. "Know what? For all I know, you'd have killed us all without batting an eyelid. Lucky this wasn't what you were asked to do, huh?"

Silence again. On the meadows that stretched around the caravan glittered hoar frost. Goosebumps ran over Yohji's skin, and Aya's fingers had a bluish tinge. The cold of the winter morning bit but they ignored it.

Soft voices drifted from inside the van, then slurring footsteps and someone bustling about in the kitchenette. That would be Ken, Yohji thought, making breakfast for the chibi. Omi had not been himself since that night.

"Man, Aya, what the hell did you think?"

"I thought," Aya paused and half-turned so that Yohji could catch a gleam of purple from beneath red bangs, "that we were paid to do a job."

"We were a friggin' team," Yohji snapped.

"We are employed by Kritiker," Aya retorted, a tad sharper now, "and have contractual obligations. We all know the consequences of a breach of contract, especially when it involves treachery." His gaze lingered, caught Yohji's and nailed him. "So did you."

Yohji snorted and ran his hurt hand through his hair before dropping it back into his lap. "Yeah, but I'm no zombie. If I hadn't smelled a rat..." And played along to curb Aya...

"Aa. You double crossed me and Kritiker." By accepting the mission Omi and Ken had vehemently declined. By tagging along with Aya to see whether it was what it looked like, and perhaps prevent the worst. "Where was your trust then? For all we knew, Bombay and Siberian had sold out."

"For all I fucking know, I know them better than that, Ayan!" Yohji grated, a wash of scarlet flooding his cheeks. "Whatever Kritiker tell us! And even if... they had reasons!"

"So did our employer," came the dry reply as Aya turned his attention back to his katana. "Emotionality is not an asset in our line of work."

"Ah! And what about all that blurb they keep givin' us, justice 'n all? " Yohji burst out. "You're like a damn soldier, brainwashed into stupidity! How does it feel not havin' to think, huh? Only following orders, after all it was nothin' to do with you, or your conscience if you friggin' have such a bloody thing – ah, whatever." He dropped the almost finished cigarette and got up, all fluid motion sharpened by anger.

Aya suppressed a sigh. It always ended like that, he could have played the conversation out like a looping tape before it even began. That night, Yohji had played foul, and when Aya realised it, things had almost gone wrong. Awfully wrong. Now they were still trying to figure out whether Kritiker had split Weiss with the intention of wiping out the team, or as some warped test of loyalty... a psychological assessment of the practical kind. it was maddening.

Black orchids. A fake order, given to Aya, or so he was led to believe, for no one else to know, not even Yohji who had declared he would stick to the mission brief, in spite of Omi and Ken's incredulous protests. The younger men took off to protect their friends from their former team mates – to all of Aya's knowledge, the chibis had broken with Kritiker and were on the hitlist. Yohji's cool acceptance of the job, Aya's twinge of suspicion wiped away by an odd kind of relief that he was not quite on his own, and the sudden realisation that he would have to murder Yohji to stop him from killing the chibis because Yohji was not to know that they had received a black orchid...

And then, instead of backing up Aya, Yohji had been trying to protect the youngsters by faking it, by tying Omi to that damn carousel with loops of wire, the chibi in a panic and aiming to kill Yohji, but unable to do so, and Ken coming on to Aya with claws and murderous despair.

xxx

Afterwards, they had tried to talk it through and lost their way. They had tried to think it over and not been able to make sense of it. Whatever there had been between them was shattered. Black orchids... Persia had lauded the team for bringing down the target, but the tape Manx played with her usual cool had done nothing to disperse the sour aftertaste of betrayal. Perhaps they had grown too close for Kritiker's comfort, Yohji had speculated. But then, Yohji had always been a tad rebellious, a little too independent, never quite submitting to Kritiker's authority. He had always been too inquisitive, Aya mused with bitterness, a leftover of his old job perhaps, or something that was just him.

How strange that the one who seemed most amenable, most easygoing, should be the rebel of their team, and Aya, always prone to outbursts of anger and lashings of pride would comply with an order without a question... had Yohji tried to wake him up? Aya brushed the thought aside because it hurt, and he was hurting enough already. Yohji had not trusted him. Yohji still believed he would have wiped out Weiss. Yohji, the only one who truly mattered now in Aya's life, had thought Aya no more than a soulless killer...

Aya bit his lip. Never mind that... Omi, badly wounded in more than one way, had broken trust with all of them and clamped down completely. He would not let on whether he had been ordered by Kritiker to protect his friends, but his dealings with Manx and Persia had reached zero degree, and occasionally, unlike the cool, collected teen that they had known before that mission, he lost his rag with Manx. With uneasy surprise, they discovered that Omi could be rather high-handed and was by no means broken, but he had a hard time of it all.

Aya's hand slowed as he inspected the blade once more. Omi and Ken had seemed so real, so true in their shock and despair... so had it been a test for himself and Yohji?

And if so, who had passed?  
What did Kritiker really want?

xxx

Oh, they had played along alright when the order came through Aya's earpiece to cut it and round up their enemy and his remaining aides. Bleeding and confused, the four of themhad scrambled from the snow and dragged themselves to the getaway car Aya and Yohji had parked on the outskirts of the fairground. With Yohji driving, the ride to their target's quarters had passed with hisses and groans of pain as they wrapped up their injuries as well as they could with the first aid kit from the boot.

The general thought they were dead, having slaughtered one another on that fairground. So they swept in by surprise and took out their frustration and despair on him, making him die piece by piece, letting him taste his own blood and agony until Ken ended it for him.

Never before had they massacred a target.

Afterwards, in spite of honeyed praise and promises of rewards by Persia, the shock had deepened when they came together in the confines of the van. Omi kept fingering the deep cuts the wire had inflicted on his arms, his eyes kept drifting into that faraway expression, his face awash with pain he did not bother to hide. He stayed away from Aya, who carefully kept his distance to all of them.

xxx

**Notes:  
1** harigane – the wire Yohji uses for a weapon; the real thing looks somewhat different to the fancy pop-out-from-a-watch one he uses in the anime – it is a length of wire (if for cutting) or rope (if for choking/strangling), with either two loops or two handles attached to the ends. It is a close-up weapon, unlike the anime fantasy version, designed for swift and silent killing, and requires body height, strength and brutality.


	6. The End Of A Lifetime 2

**After The Rain 2 - The End Of A Lifetime**

**xxx**

(Weiss centred)  
**Additional Warning: References to self-harm. Omi smoking.**

**xxx**

Aya glanced up to see Yohji still standing in the entrance door of the van, his arms wrapped around himself now against the cold, his lips white. He was shivering. "I think breakfast's ready," he said, his tone void of any expression. "Come in before you catch a chill."

Yohji disappeared inside the trailer. Aya sheathed his sword, picked up the rag and jar and followed him.

They gathered at the small table between the kitchenette and the lounge. Ken kept his gaze firmly on his plate with a heap of scrambled eggs. Yohji had shoved his food back and lounged in his chair, one knee pressed against the edge of the table. Both hands wrapped around his mug of coffee, he swirled the hot stuff arond without drinking, watching the whisps of steam that rose into the dank chill of the trailer. Omi tried to suppress a hiccup while shovelling egg onto a slice of toast and taking big, hasty bites. Now and then, he scrubbed wildly at his face with the back of his bony hand.

Aya sat down and began to eat, uncaring what it was that filled his stomach. Not even their familiar routines had made it past that mission. They did not bicker. The chibis played no music. Yohji did not go out, and Aya did not fuss about food and tidiness. Weiss had become way too quiet.

"Any news from Kritiker?" Yohji broke the silence when he could not bear it any longer.

Omi shook his head without looking up and kept stuffing his mouth with food so he did not have to talk. Ken roughly pushed back his chair and plonked his plate into the sink. He had difficulties moving, and winced at every step, his arm in a sling to still the shoulder Aya's blade had pierced clean through.

"I'll do the washing up," Omi mumbled around a mouthful of toast that he quickly washed down with some coffee.

Yohji got up and gently shoved Ken aside to reach for the pot of coffee. "I wonder whether we need to restock on soil and fertiliser," he said, and Ken left for the shop without a word.

Aya ate neatly, as always, neither too fast nor too slow, drank his tea in measuredsips– Yohji had made him tea, after all, and Aya hadnot even criticised its quality. Then he rose to wash his plate and mug. He could feel Yohji's glances like stabs to his back and longed to get away from all this.

"You gonna do the deliveries?" Yohji enquired, slumping back onto his chair and starting to rock on it.

"Aa, if that suits everyone," Aya replied over his shoulder. He received no answer, and so he dried his crockery, put it into the cupboard over the sink, and went to get dressed.

"We won't have scores of customers today," Yohji said across the table.

Omi still chewing, said nothing, his gaze downcast, one hand curled around his mug, the other kneading a piece of toast into a small ball of damp bread.

Yohji stretched his leg and nudged him under the table. "Hey, chibi, take a break, huh? Go somewhere nice?"

Omi swallowed hard. "Iie," he said to the table, "I got schoolwork."

They kept forgetting that he was still trying to pass his final set of exams.

Aya walked past on his way out to check over the order book and load the few deliveries into the car they used for running around. Yohji watched him carefully load the arrangements onto the back seat and into the boot, and he felt a dragging sensation in his chest. Aya looked good, in tight blue jeans, boots and his ratty orange sweater, a replacement for the old one, with his growing hair tied in a stubbly ponytail at the nape of his neck. Aya always looked good.

"You still like him?" Omi's quiet voice startled Yohji from his contemplation.

He managed a quick smile and even a wink. "We all have our little vices, huh?"

Omi regarded him blankly. "You got a few more," he remarked stiffly. "And not that little, either. Won't you get dressed, too? You'll catch somethin', the van isn't exactly a hot spring. I'll have to check out the heater." Which was running off a battery that they had to recharge off the diesel generator, which chugged away in a muffled hum to power the chillers in the shop. For days, the heater had been rattling and coughing but not doing much to warm them. Under normal circumstances, Omi or Ken would have mended the thing and been done with. Now, neither of them cared much.

"You sound like him now," Yohji said, but his tone was soft and he reached out to lay one long, hard hand over Omi's wrist. "Hey, ease up, chibi. Gimme a smile."

Omi tried, but it was a pained grin that curved his lips. "Got a fag?"

Yohji plopped the packet onto the table and flicked it with his fingers so that it skidded across to Omi who caught it and tapped two cigarettes out of it. He lit them and handed one to Yohji. Outside, the car sprang to life, and they listened to Aya driving off, the hum of the engine fading in the frosty distance of the winter morning.

"I'm so tired, Yohji," Omi said into the silence that settled over them again as though it had never been disturbed. Like the still waters of a pond after a stone has disrupted their smooth mirror, settling after the last waves have rippled to the verge... "I'm so goddamn tired I wanna go to sleep and not wake up again, not ever fucking wake up to this shit again." He had lost much weight, his wrists were striped red, marks other than those of Yohji's wire ran the length of his thin arms. When Yohji had surprised him in the cramped shower room the other night, he had hoisted himself up from the toilet bowl even as he tried to cover up cuts on his stomach and chest with a towel, and hastily wiped traces of puke off his mouth.

"Tired, yeah," Yohji said through a swath of smoke, "but I hate givin' in. It's worth waking up. To a blue sky and sunshine, or to feel the rain on your skin, or to have a good screw. It's all worth it. I'd hate to see some folks have it all and laugh their heads off 'cos they think they can grind us down after we've done their dirty work."

Omi regarded him dully. "Is that it?"

Yohji nodded. "Yeah, that's it."

"And you'd have..." Omi shrunk into himself, the hand with the cigarette resting limply on the table. His gaze drifted off, following the whirls of smoke. "You wouldn't have killed us, Yohji? You wouldn't, right? I saw... I saw it in your eyes. You wouldn't have done it, and I couldn't shoot you. I knew you wouldn't do it."

Yohji pushed out his lower lip and let out a long stream of smoke. He swallowed hard a few times, as though trying to speak. After a pause, he said, "No, I..." He wiped his eyes and then sought Omi's gaze, a lost, sad smile playing on his lips. "There was a moment..." No more than a passing glimpse, a split second, flitting past before he knew it...

Omi's eyes widened.

Yohji swallowed again, tiny beads of sweat settling on his forehead and his upper lip. "I won't lie, chibi. That moment, I thought I'd do it. I thought I'd die there, and everything was suddely real, that dart you shot through my arm, and Ken trying to kill... the whole bloody lot, and I'd done it that moment if I'd had the strength..." He covered his face with his free hand for a moment, then pinched the bridge of his nose and met Omi's eyes again over the hand that now held the cigarette and hid half his face. When he let the hand drop to the table, limply splaying long, hard fingers, his smile was still in place, albeit rather lopsided. "I'm sorry, chibi. I'm really sorry..."

Omi sagged in his chair and closed his eyes. He lifted the cigarette to his mouth, missed twice, and had to glance at his trembling fingers to manage to wedge it between his lips for a long, deep drag. For a while, they sat in silence. Hate silence, Yohji thought vaguely, has been too much of it lately... should go out perhaps... try and bed someone...

"I understand," Omi murmured after a while, focussing on Yohji again. He sighed. "I think I understand." That Yohji's trust had cracked that moment, in a second of weakness, a sliver of doubt, and he had opted to fight for his own life, and how hard it was for him to admit this. That Yohji could have taken the easy way out, by lying now, or by not accepting the mission back then, or by blatantly siding with them and perhaps kill Aya... That he had played his charm and stealth for all they were worth, that he had been bleeding in his heart because he would have thought that he had to murder Aya to save them. That he had been there to help Omi and Ken, that he had chosen to betray Aya and perhaps...

Yohji was still bleeding. Aya always made Yohji bleed. But Omi was too tired to feel but a passing shadow of the old resentment.

At least Yohji admitted that he had cracked. He could be blatant with such things. Yohji, soft, warm, ruthless, murderous. Still strong enough to beat them all, or hold them all when they were teetering on the brink of blackness. For Yohji was light and sunshine and the joy of life.

Yohji made to get up, but Omi grabbed his hand. "He hates you now."

And Yohji did get up,stepped around the table and pulled Omi close, blowing a puff of smoke into streaky blond hair. "Is okay, chibi." Cautiously thumbing over Omi's arms where he could feel the bandages covering the wire cuts. "It doesn't matter. It's okay."

xxx


	7. The End Of A Lifetime 3

**After The Rain2 - The End Of A Lifetime**

**xxx**

(Weiss centred)

**xxx**

Aya sat in the car, parked opposite the house where he had dropped off his last order, and stared at the street ahead. Bustling with life, people, cars, bicycles, children running along the pavement, breathing puffs of white air, colours and lights glittering in shop fronts and frosted trees.

He had been sitting here for some time. The car had gone cold inside, condensation at the bottom of the windscreen blossoming into petals of ice that crept up the dirty glass. Aya did not think, he did not see, he heard nothing. Nothing touched him of what was going on around him. He was not part of anything anymore.

Somewhere deep inside him, an odd niggling sensation would not let him alone, but he ignored it, as he ignored the children that crowded around the car, noses and hands pressed to the steamed-up windows as they gaped, breathed thawing peepholes into the thin layer of ice, and chattered excitedly about the blank sword on the rear seat.

He had forgotten where he was supposed to go after this delivery. He did not want to think about it. In his mind rang faint echoes, vaguely familiar and unimportant.

So Aya just sat there, still and silent, and let the cold seep into him until the children went and the lights of the city began to glitter in the deepening dusk. His breath made no little white clouds anymore, and he readily accepted darkness and relief.

xxx

"I am not," Ken growled, and Yohji grasped his injured arm and shook it. Ken's eyes snapped open and he bit his lips to swallow a yelp of pain.

"Look," Yohji hissed, with a sideways glance at Omi who was serving a couple of girls who wanted to buy flowers. "He's been out all night, something's happened."

"And why should I give a fuck?" Ken fumed, tugging at his hurting arm, but Yohji's strong, hard fingers clawed into the ridge between the long bones and squeezed the tendon. The pain made Ken bite his tongue; he writhed, eyes watering.

"I want you to gimme the keys for the bike." Yohji crowded him into the store room and began to rifle through his jacket pockets. "No worry, you'll have it back in one piece, but I will go looking for that idiot and see whether I should haul his sorry ass back here."

"So I can finish him off," Ken gasped when Yohji located the set of keys in the backpocket of his jeans and tugged it out.

"That depends," Yohji snapped and let go of him.

Ken leaned bonelessly against the wall, clutching with his good hand at his hurting arm. "On what? Aren't you fed up yet?" he spat.

But Yohji only shot him a dark glance and smoothly left the store room and the van. A moment later, he yanked the bike from its stand, checked over the controls, and then he was off in a roar.

"Ken?" Omi said, closing the cash register. "Where is he going?"

Ken grabbed a watering can and stepped into the shop. "Buying fags," he replied, wincing at the alarmed look in Omi's eyes. "Let's close for lunch now, shall we?"

xxx

Aya did not register the spluttering bike that pulled up sharply by his car, or that someone yanked violently at the door until the iced-up lock crunched and the thing opened with a tinny screech.

"You fucking idiot!" Someone tore at his arm, but he was so cold, so stiff, that he could not move, and suddenly his knees buckled and he fell, fell, fell...

xxx

"Passed out alright." Crossly, Yohji flung his lighter against the wall of the lounge. It clattered onto the television set and plopped onto the worn carpet.

"I am going to bed now," Omi said quietly, and when Ken jumped up from the sofa to go with him, he shook his head. "I should like to read for a while, gotta catch up on prepping for the computing exam."

So he did not give away too much because he could have pocketed all of his classmates, the teachers and a few better learned folks with his skills. Ken shook his head, but did not argue. Yohji went into the kitchenette to fetch a bottle of sake. "Zap and see whether there's anything worth watching," he said as he slumped onto the sofa next to Ken.

"There isn't. I'm not gonna watch porn with you, and you won't wanna watch soccer."

"I-" Yohji broke off when harsh coughing came from Aya's bed in a fit that would not end. So Yohji got up and disappeared into the alcove he and Aya shared. Ken heard him talk in a hushed voice, the coughing grew less and finally, amid a few hard gasps, ceased. Aya had been out cold in the truest sense of the word when Yohji brought him back in the car, and they had to go out again to fetch the bike. When they returned, Aya had been delirious with fever, raving incomprehensively and mad-eyed, and Omi looked ready to faint with exhaustion.

At least Aya was quiet now, sedated and medicated against the cold that threatened to inflame his lungs. None of them wanted to ask Kritiker for support.

Alone on the sofa, Ken grunted in disgust as he zapped through the stations until he found a sports channel with a soccer programme. He groped for the blanket that lay bunched on Yohji's side of the seat, and nestled into the rough woolly folds. He would nod off sometime during the small hours, pushed into sleeping by exhaustion, restlessness finally drowned out by the noise of the television.

xxx

Yohji woke from his drowsy doze from a soft noise. Numbly, he listened into the darkness and slowly came round to Ken's light snoring, Aya's breathing that rattled deep in his chest, and something... someone... Omi talking. Yohji held his breath and softly shoved back his blanket. Omi's voice sounded thready, pleading, pained; he talked fast and then... sobs, crying, a sound so forlorn it made Yohji hurt inside.

He got up and softly padded across, the threadbare carpet barely covering the cold lino of the floor beneath his bare feet. Omi lay on his bunk, amid rumpled sheets, and was crying in his sleep, harsh, hacked-off sobs wrenching from his throat.

Yohji folded into a crouch and touched Omi's brow. "Hey, Omitchi," he murmured into the darkness.

Omi stirred beneath his hand, his babbling fading into a long moan before Yohji felt him turn and clasp both hands around his wrist. "Yoh..." He hiccupped, and somehow it did not seem funny. "Yohji-kun," he whispered.

"You had a nightmare," Yohji said quietly.

Omi writhed in the sheets. "Aa," he murmured reluctantly. "It's always the same one... since... Yohji-kun, can you... would you stay for a while?"

Without a word, Yohji pulled the sheets back, straightened them out as much as possible in the dark, and slipped in to spoon around the younger man. "Better?"

"Aa."

They lay in silence for some time, listening to the other two sleeping. Yohji saw Omi's eyes glitter in a sliver of light reflecting from the window of their bedroom. "I had nightmares when I was little," he said quietly into Omi's hair, "and my mom used to crawl in with me when... well, when she didn't have a boyfriend around. She wouldn't let me in her bed 'cos she said... ah, crap, it doesn't matter what she said. She used to tell me stories so I could go to sleep. Yanno, the stuff where a knight saves the good people and gets to marry the princess."

Omi sighed and nestled closer. Yohji wrapped one arm around the younger man and angled the other over his own head as he stared into the night. "Man, I could do with a joint now."

Small, bony fingers clasped his arm again. "Yohji-kun..."

"I know, I know, I won't. I liked those stories. Always wanted to be the knight." A smile crept into his voice. "And hey presto, I am one now, slaying dark beasts and saving damsels in distress, what with Manx this time... I think Mom would have liked to be the princess in those stories, but her knights didn't tend to stick around for long."

"Is that why you wanna hurt?"

"Hm?"

"'Cos you blame yourself that no one stayed with her?" Omi whispered, pressing closer. "That Asuka got shot? That you make mistakes?"

Yohji lay still and silent for a while. "Dunno. She was a good woman. She loved me. And she liked living." He laughed a little, without bitterness. "I think I'm my mother's son alright."

"But you wanna be hurt," Omi prodded, his voice soft and unhappy. "You fancy folk who'll hurt you. Is that why you won't... I wouldn't push you back, yanno."

Yohji heaved a long, deep sigh and wrapped both arms round him, drawing him into a tight, warm embrace. "Nah, chibi, it's not gonna happen; I don't do little brothers. Ken's good for you. Me, I got Ayan."

"And Schuldig," Omi added, barely above a whisper.

Another pause, before Yohji pressed his face into blond hair. "Hai," he said quietly, "I suppose so."

xxx

"There is no US anymore!"

Omi was jarred to a drowsy wake by Ken's bellowing.

"Get that in your fuckin' stupid head, Yohji! Or has all that friggin' bleach soaked into that bit of matter up there, huh? There never WAS something called US!"

Yohji's voice, shaken but still trying to reason, plead, gentle, "Look, I know, and I'm sorry. Shouldn't have cut your hand an' all that-"

"Fuck you, Yotan, this isn't about my hand, it's about my HEAD, and that I'm gonna go crazy if this goes on! I had enough, and I'm gonna GO!"

"Ken, please list-"

They broke off when Omi appeared in the door to the lounge where they stood facing off against one another, Ken coiled up tense like one of Yohji's wires, ready to spring, hands fisted, head thrust forward, eyes blazing. Yohji just dropping his soothingly raised hands, a resigned expression dulling his gaze. "Hey, Omitchi," he said quietly, trying a smile that turned out a grimace. "We made breakfast, want some coffee?"

"Bullshit," Omi whispered, looking ill as he dragged his pyjama top closed over his narrow chest.

From the alcove at the back came a hacking cough. Yohji briefly pinched the bridge of his nose, hiding his face with his cigarette-equipped hand, before shaking his head and making his way towards the alcove. As he passed Omi, he briefly laid a long, calloused hand on his narrow shoulder. A passing gesture, before he pulled the door shut behind him.

xxx


	8. The End Of A Lifetime 4

**After The Rain 2 - The End Of A Lifetime**

**xxx**

(Weiss centred, plus Schuldig and Yohji)

**xxx**

Late that night, after a day with few customers and fewer words, they holed up in their usual places: Aya, not capable of much and having barely seen his shift through, had curled up in his bunk. A pile of crumpled tissues lay carelessly strewn around him. He was wheezing and wracked by coughing fits, hollow and so deep inside his chest that it sounded as though he was spitting out his lungs. Ken slouched dozing in front of the flickering television, muted as not to disturb Omi who was asleep, shifting uneasily on his own bunk.

Yohji snuck out when the clanking of an empty beer can on the floor signalled that Ken had dropped off.

In jumper and jeans, barefoot and smoking one cigarette after another, Yohji sat on his haunches against the outside of the trailer, at the back, near Omi's window, so he could listen through the flimsy walls. He was doing something he was ashamed of and therefore hiding. It had nothing to do with sex, of which Yohji was not ashamed under any circumstances, or drink and assorted little helpers which he downed careless of what the others might think. Everything was good as long as it felt good, at least for a while.

This did not. Yohji had let his head drop onto his arms, crossed over his knees, hands dangling off either side of his thighs, the fall of bleach blond hair pallid in the vague sheen of the snow-covered ground.

Yohji was trying to cry.

xxx

"Manx was caught. She could do nothing." Aya doubled over as another fit of coughs wracked him, and Yohji watched as he braced himself against the wall above the toilet.

"Somehow I don't think that's the issue," Yohji said quietly. He had become way too quiet, smoking almost constantly, drinking recklessly. No more dates, no more jokes. Bags under his eyes, and his smiles forced.

At least he still tried, Aya thought vaguely. This was Yohji; he would be trying to see some hope in the worst of scenarios, what a fool.

"You knew," Yohji went on, watching Aya take a pee while the coughing subsided into a rough wheeze. "All that shit with her black orchid allergy. I taped the transmission, yanno. Old habits die hard, and perhaps I'm not quite as stupid as I look, but how the hell did they get to Persia, huh? And why the fuck didn't you trust any of us?"

Aya shook his head, his brain a sloppy mass that rebounded from the insides of his scull. "Risk," he rasped, tucking himself back in messily, hands shaky with fever.

"Trust, Ayan?" Yohji retorted, tapping his cigarette at the edge of the sink, ash drizzling in thick flakes into the grimy bowl. "Hell, how could you know we wouldn't murder one another?"

Aya flushed the toilet and then straightened awkwardly. He stood still for a moment, trying to keep his balance as the world around him spun in a slow, fevered maelstroem. Then he turned his head to Yohji.

His eyes were cold, haunted, dead. "I didn't."

xxx

He had not known. He did not want to think about it. He had tried to constrain the stroke and slashed into Omi's belly just enough to cause a scream of terror from the chibi, and a deluge of blood, spattering over Yohji even as Aya caught the horrified glance from green eyes. He had not been able to stop Ken from slashing into Yohji for real and from lunging, claws first, at the bloodied katana.

Aya had cracked the steel claws with a swift turn of the blade, only to feel the last unbroken talon skewer his soft flank.

Nightmares...

By the time he heard Manx' voice in the earpiece, he was frantic. It all had become too real, with blood everywhere, seeping between the fingers he pressed against his cut chest, pulsing from Yohji's arm and stomach, from Omi's limp body, and all over Ken's arms. When he had managed to tell them, his voice hollow and spluttering, they scrambled back to their feet somehow.

Bleeding, torn and badly shaken, they had gone to take out Powell with a show of the old Weiss flourish.

Though by then, they all knew it was over.  
Weiss were broken.

xxx

They had learned their bodies anew after it was over. They had not managed to relearn their minds, their hearts the same way.

Omi kept picking at the crimson slash of raw new skin across his belly, as if he did not want it to heal over. It was sore, oozing, and some of the stitches Yohji had put in were festering. The cuts his wire had left on Omi's neck and arms had faded to bright pink marks, but Omi kept retracing some of them until they bled.

Ken had bandaged up the slashes to his side, the hole in his shoulder where the blade had run into flesh and bone, and pretended they had never happened.

Aya did the same with the cuts the claws had bitten into his chest, and the deep wound to his flank.

Yohji's wire hand would never be the same again after Omi's dart had pierced his arm clean through, right above the wrist. The wounds to his abdomen were harder to deal with; he kept them bandaged tautly but they pained him, and sometimes he felt as though his guts wanted to crawl out of him.

It had been staged.  
It should not have been like that.

And yet... and yet...

xxx

Schuldig caught Yohji on one of those sitting-out-smoking sessions. Swift and silent, he pressed his long, thin hand over Yohji's mouth after flicking off the cigarette, and before Yohji could say anything, let alone get his cold, sluggish body to react, Schuldig pressed chill lips over his and inhaled the last breath of smoke from his mouth.

"Sweet," he murmured then, letting go gently to pat Yohji's cheek. "You taste as sweet as ever... better perhaps, what with all that pain and agonising... why are you agonising, dumbhead?"

He plopped onto the frozen ground next to Yohji who gaped, then laughed and threw his head back, clonking against the metal wall of the trailer. From inside, Ken's muffled voice demanded silence.

Schuldig grinned. "Your usual idiotic selves?"

"Aa," Yohji agreed, fishing for the cigarette and eyeing the soggy mess when he managed to pick it off the snow. "You fucker spoiled my fag."

"I am very sorry." Pale blue eyes glittering, dancing with expectation, a child waiting for a game, for presents, for something exciting to happen. In Schuldig's case, something that involved some gore perhaps, or someone going mental to entertain him.

"I am not going nuts for you, nutcase."

"No, you're the normal guy, that's why you're the first to go haywire."

"I'm not haywire." Yohji tried to re-light the cigarette, snapping his almost spent lighter without producing more than a bunch of sparks.

"I tasted... something." Schuldig smacked his lips. "Salty. Sweet. Awww. Tears. Mummy's little boy is crying."

"Why you little – I'm gonna kill you," Yohji lunged at him, hands coming for his throat, and Schuldig met him chest to chest, hugging him close even as they tumbled into the snow, Schuldig on his back, laughing as his hair splayed brightly behind him and Yohji's long fingers clasped around his neck, thumbs pressing hard into the hollow at the base of that bony throat. The laughter fizzling out into a choked chortle, grin still in place, lips parting, eyes bulging and turning up slowly.

A look of pure ecstasy, and Yohji realised with a pang of nausea that Schuldig was hard as hell and had trapped Yohji's thigh between his own, crotch pressing against sleek muscle.

Yohji dropped him and stumbled back. "You're one sick mother fucker," he spat.

Schuldig writhed, one hand tangling in his own hair, the other one scooting to his groin, but suddenly, he sat up, looking offended. "Yeah, and what? You enjoyed it, didn't you?"

"I'm NOT Crawford, asshole."

"No, you ain't got the format," Schuldig hissed back, "but you're a good lay if you apply yourself, Bali bunny."

"Not in the mood. Man, how on Earth... ah, forget it."

"What? Hmmm... I don't gettit." Schuldig made a show of stretching. In denims so tight they looked like he had poured himself into them, heeled black ankle boots, and an artfully sloppy blue jumper that clung to his body. Yohji stared at him unashamedly, tapping out another cigarette from a half-empty packet and fruitlessly trying the empty lighter again.

The redhead turned, posed, and tossed him a fresh lighter over his shoulder before plopping down by Yohji's side again. He tickled Yohji's neck with a strand of bright copper hair. "Like what you see?"

"Piss off." Yohji puffed a stream of smoke into his eyes.

Schuldig pulled a face and waved his hand. "Brad's telling me to quit, but the bastard is still doing it himself. Lemme have a suck."

"No."

"Please," Schuldig begged, sneaking his arm between Yohji's chest and drawn-up thighs and his free hand into his hair. He gave Yohji's cheek a lick for emphasis.

"Yuck," Yohji grouched and pushed the cigarette between Schuldig's lips.

The redhead sat back, laughing and smoking contentedly. "Still prissy. And sooo jumpy, poor thing. I'd have expected that from anyone but you."

"If you don't shut up, I'm going inside."

This time, Schuldig made no reply. Instead, he leaned against Yohji. Who let him. Schuldig was warm and felt bony through the wool of his jumper. His hair draped softly over Yohji's shoulder, against his bare neck and cheek. It smelled of tobacco, a little of old clothes and of cheap shampoo. Yohji drew a deep breath, sucking smoke deep inside his lungs and held it there before letting go softly. "Yo, Schuldig."

No answer.

"Hey, asshole."

"You told me to shut up," came the sulky retort.

"Man, you'd drive a saint round the bend."

A low chuckle. Schuldig pressed closer, until they were touching from head to ankle. It felt oddly familiar to have him like that, his antics somewhat subdued, with less of the restlessness he usually radiated.

"Know why?" Schuldig yawned and without warning, let himself flop backwards, knocking Yohji's legs flat with a flick of his fist and draped himself across Yohji's thighs to grin up at him.

Yohji was too tired to argue, too careless to fight him off. He stared blankly down at the freckled face, the cold blue eyes that sized him up like some precious morsel. "Why what?"

"Why you let me do this?"

"'Cos I can't be asked to murder you now."

"Haha, good try, but honk, zilch points for the candidate who'll get his head lopped off..." Schuldig seemed to find this hilarious; he laughed and wriggled until his head lay in Yohji's lap and his hair fell in a soft, messy wave over Yohji's thigh, down to the frosty ground.

"Go on then," Yohji mumbled, shaking his head. "You're such an... ah, whatever."

"That's not your line," Schuldig admonished, waving an outstretched index finger before Yohji's nose. Schuldig squeezed one eye shut and pushed some smoke through his nostrils. The finger stopped, then moved back and forth. For a moment, Yohji felt tempted to bite it. Hard. To draw blood. Schuldig watched him earnestly. "Say aaah and concentrate on my fingertip... yeah, now you're crosseyed..."

Yohji let his head sink back and groaned.

"And the correct answer is – you let me 'cos you need a break, moron," Schuldig said, voice an almost perfect impersonation of Crawford.

"I'm gonna puke all over your precious hair."

"THEN I'd kill you. Throttle you a little, perhaps, and... uh... lemme see..." Ice blue eyes drifting almost shut, little cold splinters gleaming from beneath copper lashes, smile small and teethy as the tip of his tongue slipped slowly over his lower lip. "Well, I'd rather you didn't do it, so I don't have to murder you and can have MY break when I feel like it. You're so tastily sane, Bali." He chuckled and turned his face into Yohji's belly even as his arms came round Yohji's back and clasped him firmly into place.

"Get off," Yohji said lamely. "I'm not gonna bonk you."

"Pervert." Schuldig's muffled voice hummed through Yohji's stomach.

"That tickles."

Schuldig curled up until his long body was folded around Yohji's sitting form. "Hmmm, so nice... sweet 'n tough, like caramel." And suddenly, all tension melted from his lanky limbs; he sagged into Yohji and stayed still.

xxx


	9. Return To The Game 1

**After The Rain 3 – Return To The Game**

After Dramatic Precious/run-up to Gluehen.  
Omi has finally decided to accept his Takatori heritage and become Takatori Mamoru again. Aya abandons everything and goes overseas to work on his own (after an aborted attempt detailed in 'Winding Down').Using his business connections - old and new - Omi still keeps an eye on all of them: Aya, and Yohji who hangs around in a less savoury part of the city, and also Ken who has hooked up with some yakuza. After finding out about Eszet's plans for the future, not only Omi has to make a choice...

**Disclaimer:** This story is not for profit, all rights with their current owners.  
**Warnings:** Spoilers throughout. The boys are foulmouthed. The chibis are no cuties.  
**Rating:** M for male/male affection and references to sex. Don't look for graphic instructions though - you will be disappointed.  
**Pairs **(I would not call them couples):Aya/Yohji (destiny interrupted), Omi/Ken (definitely no sweeties), Crawford/Schuldig (Schuldig has a thing for Yohji though).

**Disclaimer, warnings and rating valid for all chapters of this story.**

**xxx**

(This chapter is Aya/Omi centred.)

**xxx**

Aya left the taxi, paid his precise fare and adjusted the katana beneath his sharply taylored leather coat. He had decided to walk the rest of the way to the gleaming highrise in an expensive business part of the city – it would help him assess the situation properly. Unsurprised, he spotted a couple of men in dark suits and sunshades loitered about a side entrance in the service alley that led onto the yard behind the block of glass and concrete. Aya stayed on the opposite side of the road for some time, watching until he was sure they were waiting, checking their wristwatches, tapping their wireless earplugs, pacing restlessly.

They were no police, obvious enough for someone who expected such a reception...

Aya crossed the road a little further up and walked, slowly to give them time to see him, and they ushered him in without a question. A few of their colleagues received him in the gloomy hallway, all of them suited and shaded, with wireless comms. None of them bothered to ask for his katana; they contented themselves to wall him in, five men no less, each one at least a head taller than Aya, built like a cupboard and hulking over him as they led him to a lift and rode up in the glass-fronted elevator.

He did not care. Even in the restricted space, with his blade useless, he trusted his own skills – he could tell where they kept their guns in their smart suits, that one of them had a knife holstered to his lower leg, and another one a wire in his pocket.

A wire.  
Just like Yohji.

Aya felt something wrench in his chest, a dragging pressure that coiled around his heart, and he drew a quick, deep breath to soothe it away and concentrate. Carpets to muffle every step, he mused absentmindedly, as he looked through the glass down into a cavernous lobby with an unoccupied reception desk. No good if one needed to keep an ear on intruders... cameras everywhere, quite openly to deter any would-be, but the small control lights black and blind... props...

"Fujimiya-sama?" The largest of the men gestured at the door even as the car thudded gently to a halt.

"After you, gentlemen," Aya replied.

The elevator doors swished open, and he followed the first three men into the diffusely lit corridor, with the other two bringing up the rear. He almost smiled: here, the floor was bare, polished marble, every step resounding clearly from the dark, hardwood-panelled walls – his client knew his trade after all, old and new.

At the end of the hallway, he could see a set of rather pretentious double doors, of the same wood as the panelling, adorned with cool silver knobs, but to Aya's surprise, the goons piled up by one of the plainer single doors closer to the elevator and the fire escape stairs.

The big guy turned to Aya. "Fujimiya-sama, if you would wait-"

"Let him in, please," a youthful voice interrupted him, amid the soft static of a concealed speakerphone, and the door clicked open.

"Yes, sir." The guard stood aside and let Aya reach for the door. They were well trained, Aya registered, no cheap muscle but professionals who knew they had to avoid addressing the man they guarded... not giving away the smallest hint as to his identity. He hesitated for the fraction of a second, his gloved fingers curling around the edge of the handle-less door.

"Guards?" The young voice held a tiny hint of impatience.

Aya swung the door open and stepped inside. No light, only the vague glow of the city evening flowing through a glass wall opposite the door, and Aya paused to allow his eyes a moment to adjust. "Good evening," he said into the hazy darkness.

Smooth, unadorned walls, the deepening dusk over the city, speckled with myriads of glittering lights, the orange glow of fog and light fading into the night above. In the depths beyond gleamed a single star.

Aya waited. In front of the window, behind a sleek glass-and-steel desk, stood a man, his back to Aya, his rather slight silhouette a dark shadow against the sparkle of the city. "Beautiful, isn't it?" he said softly.

Aya made no reply.

"Weren't you homesick?" The man turned, arms folded over his chest. His trim frame was impeccably suited, his blond hair neatly parted,blue eyes glittering from a soft young face at his guest in the semi-darkness.

"Mamoru-san," Aya said, unable to keep the strain out of his tone when saying the hated name. "It is good to see you well." He bowed lightly.

"And you, indeed." A mere nod, a small pause, then, "You grew your hair."

Crimson bangs still falling into his eyes, but the rest of an almost waist-long, permanently dyed mane tied into asmooth ponytail at the nape of a sinewy neck. Aya made no reply, and Omi cocked his head a little. "So?"

"I have no home to long for," Aya said flatly.

"Ah... how could I forget." A tiny nod, the merest hint of a bow, just enough to do keep appearances. "I apologise."

Aya winced at the deliberate clarity of the words, and let his gaze drift past those sharp eyes, into the lightfilled darkness that slowly sank over the city. Omi unfolded his arms and gently beckoned him. "Please, Aya-kun, come in and take a seat. What we have to discuss will take some time. Are you sure you had enough rest after coming back to Tokyo?"

Aya walked into the room that felt eerily unused, as unfinished as the entire building, with the faint smell of fresh paint and floorvarnish in the climatised air. No office plants, he registered dimly as he said, "I am fine, thank you." Even though Omi had not passed up the opportunity to re-establish his authority, by using the informal address while accepting Aya's respectful formality.

"May I offer you a drink?" Omi gestured at a couple of leather seats and a small round glass table to one side of the desk.

Stiffly, Aya sat down, shifting his katana onto his lap as he sank into the chair. "No, thank you, Mamoru-san." The leather coat creaked a little as he tried to find a somewhat more comfortable position in the too-soft seat. Deep enough to slow down any sudden motion, low enough to make it difficult to jump up... yes, Omi did know his trade, and he had forgotten nothing. Aya was sure that the young man wore teflon beneath his fine suit of light grey wool and the expensive, impeccably white shirt, and that tiny bulge on the left side of his chest quite possibly hid an elegant holster with a gun, and yes, that was why the smart jacket hung unbuttoned in spite of the formal dark silk tie...

Omi smiled as he sat down opposite Aya, who noticed that Omi's seat appeared to be much firmer and higher. "Thank you for coming here so quickly, Aya-kun."

A small bow. "Your orders, Mamoru-san."

"And your skills. It must have taken considerable... efficiency to wrap up your latest project so soon."

Another bow. "I do not deserve your praise. Imerely try to satisfy my clients."

"Aa." Omi reached into the inside of his jacket; Aya started, fingers tightening around the katana, and Omi paused, his smile never wavering, blue eyes intense, before he continued the motion. He brought out a silvered metal wallet and placed it onto the table. "You told me over the phone that you would be prepared to accept another assignment. Was the advance sufficient to cover your needs?"

"It paid for travel and accommodation, as usual."

This time, they shared a small, cool smile. Aya had travelled in a charter jet and was lodging in one of the most luxurious hotels money could buy in the city. Now that he had no more medical bills to pay, with his sister well and living a free, settled life, Aya indulged in a rather extravagant style. It was part of a carefully cultivated image he promoted to prospective clients who valued credentials and flair, along with skill and the whiff of a certain reputation. Act smart, look smart, demand the highest fees in the trade... and give it your all. It paid off.

Omi nodded. "Good. I am glad. Allow me to come right to the point then, Aya-kun. This time, I am offering you a long-term contract. It would require you to work exclusively for me, under cover, and without the possibility to refuse an assignment." His eyes bored into Aya's. "You understand what that means."

Omi did not ask, and he had not bothered to make a big point of the catches this offer contained. There was no need for it – they both knew. Aya would become some kind of 'Project Manager' or 'Executive' in some shady little company that could be founded and wiped out with no more than an off-the-shelf registration pack.He would be just another insignificant middle manager, a salaryman who, by day, would be at home in the glib corridors of corporate life, and by night return to the type of skills he had honed to perfection...

Omi snapped open the wallet, and Aya suppressed a startled gasp. He had half expected the thing to contain a recording device, but it actually held a lighter and cigarettes – slim, dark and perfumed with sandal. Omi picked one and lit up. "A small vice," he said, almost apologetically, and even in the half-light, Aya registered with some jaded amusement that a faint blush rose to his cheeks. Omi's smile though did not waver. "It reminds me of an old friend."

A hot wave washed over Aya; he felt his skin tingle and his heart sink. It cost him an effort to keep up a carefully blanked face under Omi's probing gaze.

"Your contract," the young man continued quietly through a thin veil of smoke, "would include private health care and life insurance appropriate to the risks of your work.It would afford a lump sum payment and a pension to any relatives you may wish to benefit. Plus a retirement fund for yourself, of course..."A curl of smoke, a small nod as if to underline the words that flowed mellow, cool, almost friendly.Aya kept a straight face, nodded too, yes, a retirement fund...nonsensical but polite... so very considerate...

They both knew the game, and by silent agreement were playingit out by the rules. "Any expenses would be met, no questions asked," Omi continued. "In addition, you would receive an agreed fee for every job you successfully complete. I suggest we keep to the usual arrangement for transfers; it seemed rather convenient?"

Aya swallowed hard. No compensation for failure, no matter what the cost – Omi had adapted well to the world of business as a Takatori would conduct it. And Aya knew better than to ask how such a contract could be terminated, or whether it contained a break clause – this kind of employment had no written undertakings, and only one way out. Yet no one else would make such an offer, no one else could be trusted to keep it. Omi would have known he could not refuse: even if he made a good, even extravagant living for himself, it seemed never enough to buy security for his sister. Aya was obsessed with security after having his world torn apart while he could only look on. To him, money meant security – as much money as possible, and ideally more than he could count. So the chibi had put his lever precisely where he knew Aya would cave in.

He would sell himself yet again. Give up his independence, subordinate his wishes, his will and what small dreams he had, to stark necessity. Reality stung, but he was used to it... had to get used to it again. For a moment, he let his gaze drop to his hands that clutched the katana. Stillness filled the large room, and it struck Aya again how empty the place felt. He looked up to find Omi was still scrutinising him, and locked eyes with the younger man. "Why are we meeting here?"

A small smile played over Omi's lips. "Let's say, it's all part of the game. These are hired premises; I cannot afford to see my company associated with this kind of business. Aa, I'm here on the sly, Aya-kun."

Aya snorted softly; here, finally, was a trace of the old Omi, beyond the polished facade of the savvy businessman, beyond formalities and polite nothings, and still as hard as steel. But it meant that there was still a hint of the old trust, too... Aya bowed, as deeply as before. "Fine, Mamoru-san. I accept."

"Ahhh." Omi leaned back into his chair and let a long stream of smoke curl from his mouth. "I am glad."

Tensely, Aya shifted to the edge of his seat. "Well..."

"I would like you to stay at the same hotel for now."

"Until when?"

"Until your first assignment is completed." Omi lifted one carefully manicured hand, nails shimmering in the semi-darkness, and slowly raked through his neatly groomed hair. "It is a rather peculiar task."

Aya watched. Omi still smiled, but it was not real, his eyes remained cool and shadowy, and he seemed as edgy as Aya. "I would like you to convey the same offer to someone else on my behalf. It would be... difficult for me, as you surely will appreciate. Therefore, this shall be your first assignment under your new contract."

Spill it, chibi, Aya thought, suddenly impatient, his fingers tightening on the sword. He began to feel hot and wondered whether the air conditioning was broken, especially when he noticed the fine sheen of sweat that beaded on Omi's downy upper lip.

The young man reached into his jacket again and brought out a small brown envelope. He placed it on the table and needlessly smoothed it out before sitting back again, his eyes firmly on Aya. "I would like you to go to this address and observe before making your approach. Tail him for a while if you must. I trust your judgement as to the right moment. Avoiding contact is not an option; I want you to talk to the man in question and bring me his answer."

Aya did not move. Omi behaved oddly. Way too cagey for an ordinary mission, and his offer... to make it to someone else after Aya had accepted – what a sly way of going about things. But then, this was Omi, heir of the Takatori legacy, who had taken to running his empire as though he had done this all his life, and he did not have to justify his decisions to Aya. He owned the contract Aya had just accepted, and if he chose to make Aya work with a partner...

Aya looked at the envelope. Had he been the first one to receive a contract? Why did he feel so hot now beneath all those layers of teflon and leather? And what was the chibi really getting at?

Perhaps he should have declined.  
Pehaps it would be better not to know.

"Please open the envelope, Aya-kun."

So Aya mechanically picked it up, opened it and read.  
An address. A name.

The silence thickened, the paper fluttered to the floor... then Aya violently yanked back his chair and stood, and Omi rose swiftly, his left hand inside his jacket. So there he kept his gun. Or perhaps a backup one; he had always been good at contingency planning.

"Is it so hard," the young man said with a quiet challenge in his tone, "to meet old friends?"

"He is not my friend," Aya snapped before he could bite the words back.

Omi stood still, facing him down unblinkingly. "Iie. Perhaps my choice of term was flawed. Still... may I remind you of our agreement."

The chibi fought mean. Aya felt a familiar pain drag through his chest, something that years ago had been searing, burning him inside, raging fire, too much, too much... until just ashes were left behind... And now it was back, this sensation he had believed buried and forgotten, locked into a fortress of ice, forever... it was back and burning him alive.

Friend? No. Aya had no friends. Mate, yes. Lover, warmth, soul of his life... Yohji. Everything. Yohji. Yohji. Yohji. Never told, never yielded, never admitted. Pain, heartbreak, sorrow beyond words until he was black and vacant inside, and finally calm. Yohji. Sunshine and honey, love and passion, too much, too much, too much... Unbearable. The fear of loss too overwhelming, so he made the loss happen. Walked away after raising hopes, pretending that dreams could come true. Illusions. Delusions. In the end, Ayachoose the pain he knew, the course of action he believed he could control, over the vagueness of the future. He could not live with vagueness, not wait for loss to hit him unprepared. Could not bear looking into deep green and not own, not hold, not shield... he had walked away, from Yohji, to finally find silence.

He found an ocean of pain instead.

Aya drew a deep, slow breath, willing his body to relax and his mind to settle into soothing darkness once more. He felt the heat drain from his limbs, leaving him cold and distant while he kept listening.

"...would expect you to report back to me within a week," Omi said, his voice collected and firm. "I believe that should allow you enough time for your observations. You will receive detailed instructions regarding our next rendezvous, in due course. I leave it to your proficiency when and how to approach him, but if the opportunity should not arise, I would not expect you to endanger yourself. In that case, I will need to know in order to adjust my plans with regards to the time scale of this operation."

Aya broke away first, his gaze drifting into the glittering night beyond Omi's slender silhouette. "Plans?" he murmured.

"Aa, Aya-kun." Omi paused to squish out his cigarette, before straightening and carefully pocketing the silver wallet. "I have finally decided to take the advice of an old friend." Along, probing glance at Aya. Before Omi finished,saying every word carefully, "Weiss will return to the game."

**xxx**


	10. Return To The Game 2

**After The Rain 3 - Return To The Game**

**xxx**

(Yohji and Omi. Memories.)

**xxx**

Watching the door close behind Aya, Omi sucked his lower lip between his teeth and began to worry the soft flesh, while his fingers played with the cigarette case. It had taken him a long time to find enough resolve and resources, but now, perhaps, the time was right, just as Yohji had foreseen... Yohji, in his easy, lucid ways. Maybe it did not take Crawford's type of imagination to see enough of the future, and it took no gift at all, but all the strength he had,to remember...

Remember.  
And not break under the burden of sorrow...

**xxx**

"Is it true?" Yohji, face ashen, eyes dull, leaned against the door of their mission room. They heard the outside door slam as Aya stormed out, and shortly afterwards, the engine of the Porsche screamed as he drove off. Yohji winced a little and dropped the half-unsheathed katana he had been hugging to his chestagainst Aya's wrath. The blade clunked to the wooden floor, and Yohji gave it a shove with his foot that sent it slithering against the door.

Omi crouched on the workbench that served for a seat. Elbows on his knees, hands pressed together at the knuckles andfisting in the overlong sleeves of his tee, sneaker-clad feet dangling listlessly. His head bent low, he merely nodded.

Silence settled between them, thick and cold, clinging to the skin like fog. Omi sniffed and scrubbed one cotton-wrapped hand over his face. Yohji could not see his expression and had no idea what to say right then, so he lit two cigarettes and offered one to Omi, who took it without a word.

"So," Yohji broke the stillness, "you're a Takatori. So what?"

Omi tensed up a bit more, his shoulders hunched and heaving. "Man, Yotan... after all that happened..." A puff of blue smoke, another wipe over his face, blond bangs hanging stubbornly over his features.

"It's not your fault."

More smoke. "My ass," Omi whispered hoarsely, "I nearly killed him... I know what he's thinkin' now, and I can't even blame him now."**1**

"You were following orders, weren't you? And it never happened anyway."

"'Cos you were there." Finally, Omi looked up, eyes dark and watery. "I'd have done it, yanno. For Kritiker. I believed..." He broke off to suck in a deep lungful of smoke. His hand with the cigarette was shaking, and his nose dribbled a little. He did not notice. "You've been right all along."

Yohji shrugged. "Chance.Everyone's fooled now and then, Omitchi. It happens."

"He... he came after me with the sword," Omi rasped, his voice barely above his breath. "He meant to cut me down."

Yohji came to life. "Yeah, and you'd have let him." He walked across and sat down by Omi's side. "He'll calm down, yanno."

"He nearly cut you."

A wry smile curled Yohji's lips, and he gave Omi a glance from hooded eyes. "I can handle it."

"You just patched up... with him, I mean."

"It'll mend. It always does."

Omi looked lost. "He'll think... it just looks like I fooled him all along. All of you."

"Perhaps we've all been led on,but not by you," Yohji said quietly through another breathful of smoke, watching as Omi's face tightened, then as his lips puckered and his eyes squeezed shut as he tried to hold back tears. Omi slumped, burying his head in the protective embrace of his crossed arms, cigarette idly turning to ash between his fingers.

Yohji laid his hard, wire-scoured hand onto Omi's shoulder and shook him a little. "Hey, chibi..."

"Don't fuckin' chibi me, Yohji," came the bitter retort. "How many times... ah, bullshit. Why aren't you surprised at least?"

Yohji left his hand where it was. Warm and heavy. "Now then... how should I put it... well, I've always been like curious... uh... so let's just say, as a leftover from a former life of mine-"

"Yohji!"

Yohji shifted closer, and his arm settled around Omi's shoulders. "Okay then. I did a bit of my own research, some time ago. Beyond the mission briefings for our previous Takatori jobs. Wealwaysseemed to get too little detail to go by, yanno."

"Ah... I see..." Cheeks burning with shame, the young man tried to twist away, butYohji's arm was heavy, its weight comforting and compelling, muscles of steel beneath fancy clothes and tanned skin. So Omi let himself and slump against thewarm, firm body that was offered so willingly to support him.

Another silence. Singlehandedly, Yohji shook anew cigarette from a crunched-up packet with the glowing end of the previous one. This time, he did not offer a smoke to Omi, but tossed the empty packet carelessly onto the floor. "Well, it was just speculation on my part 'cos the files that mattered were sealed off too well for my patchy skills. Hacking isn't exactly my forte."

"I could have..."

Yohji's arm tightened. "Aa. I figured... I was wrong, wasn't I?"

Omi shook his head and dropped his cigarette end. He watched it smoulder on the bare floorplanks. "It doesn't matter now. I guess I didn't really wanna know that much." He paused, one foot swinging lightly back and forth. "I'm so tired, Yohji," he said, voice flat and resigned.

He looked up, blue eyes meeting green in a bitter, lost look. "You must think I tried to hide... what can I do now? Crawford told me my... grandfather was keen to meet me. Now that I know what Persia didn't tell me."

"Why don't you go and listen what he's got to say?" Yohji said, measuring his words carefully. "Your grandfather, that is?"

Omi swallowed hard. "You don't mean this, do you? I told Crawford to get stuffed."

"Sure thing, chibi."

"Yohji... " Omi shook his head, a wry smile twisting his lips. "I cannot lead Weiss like that... it's so fuckin' hard anyway, and I haven't even told Ken yet." Despair washed over his face, and he buried it at Yohji's shoulder. "I'm so fed up... I wanna go to sleep an' sleep an' never wake up again..."

"Bollocks," Yohji declared calmly. "Look, each one of us would like another chance, right? Ken... well, he won't begrudge you trying. Aya is desperate 'cos he thinks he's a lost soul, but he's only an idiot who one day will find out just that. I just need to kick some sense into him, and then he'll be glad to start over. And you... what if you could return to what by rights should be yours anyway? Like it or not, you can do a lot with that much money and power. Even what we're doing here, but better."

"Dirty money. Aya would never forgive me."

"Does it matter? It doesn't have to be us, yanno."

Omi winced and looked up at Yohji, surprised at the cool expression on his face. "I thought..."

"Him and me? Let's say we're fraught, at least, and troubled at best." Yohji snorted a little. "Not your fault. Or anyone else's, really. And let me tell you, Omitchi, if I had such a chance, I'd grab it and not look back once."

Omi stared at him for a moment, before he breathed, "You're a fuckin' bloody liar, Yotan."

"Nope. Not this time, I swear for all it's worth." Yohji tugged at a strand of Omi's hair at the nape of his neck, then let go and shoved the younger man back. "I'll try and find that blockhead before he can unleash hell on whoever happens to cross him now. You, if you blow it, I promise I'll abandon this shit for good. Weiss, justice, you, the lot."

He rose with a smooth, fluid motion and winked at Omi. "See ya, chibi. Dress nicely, huh? Yanno, suit an' all that."

"I... I have no suit."

"Yes you do. On your bed. I thought light grey would be fine, with a nice blue tie. Matches your eyes. Well,you can always exchange it if you don't like it; the receipt is in the breast pocket."

And Yohji closed the door softly.  
Leaving Omi alone... in the dark... with his ghosts...

**xxx**

The office was still, filled with the glittering night of the city.The air laced with a faint whiff ofAya's scent, the familiar aroma of pine needles and steel. Omi sighed and lit another of the thin brown cigarettes. Aya knew nothing, really, and neither did Ken. Times had changed, things were not the way they had been anymore.

Yohji would understand, as he had always done.

**xxx**

**1** see 'Fading Light'


	11. Return To The Game 3

**After the Rain 3 - Return To The Game**

**xxx**

(Aya/Yohji centred)

**xxx**

Clad in prim black jeans, green tee and a loose grey sports jacket that covered the gun holster around Aya's chest, he picked through the sweets laid out at a kiosk opposite the street cafe. He had been watching the place for the past couple of days, and the kiosk was convenient - Aya did not refuse a treat if he could have it unobserved. Sugar shapes, candied fruit, sweet bean paste, fresh filled mochi... He chose a packet of mochi with red bean paste and tore open the cellophane wrapper. He put one mochi into his mouth, savouring the faint sweetness of the soft, gelly-like rice cake. Sugar tended to calm his nerves. It was a warm day, the airthick with the noise of passing traffic and blue with exhaust fumes, and Aya hated every moment of this job.

At first,Aya had almost missed him: short bleach blond hair that made him look younger than the sandy brown locks of old, a ratty brown jumper that clashed unflatteringly with the colour of his hair, and stained blue denims. No sunshades to hide his face, and no girls for company... Aya had to look twice, for Yohji hardly seemed his carefully preened old self. Slumped on his plastic chair, head hanging, he was nursing a mug of coffee, and Aya could not tell whether he was dozing, or stoned, or perhaps drunk. Yohji seemed oblivious to everything around him, he did not even smoke; a crumpled packet of cheap cigarettes lay forgotten on the small square table.

Aya stayed where he was, but did not bother to hide – in this state, Yohji would not see him... though once, Yohji lifted his head, rolled his shoulders as though to shake off some burden, and looked around with a dazed expression on his face. With a start, Aya almost thought that he was glancing across the busy street to the kiosk... but then,Yohji sagged back into his chair, head drooping as before, and decided to light a fag after all.

He looked haggard, a mess, had let himself go, Aya thought, bile and scorn rising to his throat even as he felt like a fool for the short burst of heat that had set his pulse racing. Aya ate another mochi, never leaving an eye off the man across the street. He needed to be coolheaded, and it irritated him that his heart should pound so hard now, for no reason whatsoever. Omi had been wrong to hope for anything here, just as Aya had foreseen, but then, they had never been on best terms with one another, and trust... well, trust was reserved for professional matters only.

But... something niggled at the back of Aya's mind. He swatted the thought down before it could emerge more clearly from the darkness.

Aya chewed slowly, savouring the sweet cake to counter the bitter taste at the back of his throat. What he sawwas so typical Yohji: either too cheerful or completely down in the dumps, with nothing in between. Mindful of Omi's instructions,Aya had followed him to the address Omi had given, and found it was a grimy flat in a rundown apartment block in an area with dirty streets and rusty cars. Most of the streetlamps outside were smashed; the unpainted hallways were covered in graffitti, and the place reeked of vomit and waste. Yohji lived there with a girl, and it did not take much to guess what she was doing to earn a living, while Yohji did not seem to be doing anything at all.

So he scrounged off a working girl. Aya even saw him kissing her when she left the flat one evening, and it made him sick to watch. In nothing but black briefs, Yohji stepped out after her into the bleak corridor. He grabbed her wrist, turned her into his embrace and gave her a warm, affectionate kiss in spite of his bleary eyes and obviously drug-fogged mind. She kissed him back, but then pushed him away. Can't afford to be late, she told him, here, have this... it's good stuff, clean, don't tell anyone, the boss wants to see bucks for it... no, don't fret, I'm just gonna work a few extra clients...

Aya was not surprised to find that her pimps had her dealing as well. From his place behind a few rubbish bags, piled into a niche between the lift and the garbage shaft, he could see Yohji standing there, looking into his direction to watch her enter the lift. The doors swished shut, the lift began to rumble down, and Yohji stood still, lost, as though he had forgotten where he was.

In the flickering white neon light of the corridor, his skin looked pale, with barely a hint of amber, and his lanky frame carried less muscle than Aya remembered – he had shrunk into himself, hollowed out, wasted away, and now he was all angles and shadows and blackness around his eyes... dull, without sparkle, without smile.

This was not Yohji anymore, Aya decided, with an odd mixture of resentment and relief. When he had read Yohji's name on the paper slip, he had been nearly overwhelmed by a wave of emotions he had believed gone. Now, in the light of another working day, he felt disgusted, yet something else wormed around in his guts, something he did not want to examine, so he firmly ignored it. He wondered what Omi was thinking to make his offer to this caricature of their old team mate, and what an insult it was to expect Aya to work with someone like that. For the looks of it, Aya mused, he could not even consider this arrangement to be safe.

He had passed up a few opportunities to approach Yohji, and time was running out, but still he hesitated. Not because he was afraid, or troubled, or plain torn by longing, but – well, he told himself, it was worth paying attention to instinct. And right now, it screamed down every nerve in his body to abandon this job, to tell Omi it was not worth it, and to hell with the consequences.

Yet he had not even tried, and this irked his professional pride. He sighed; the sweetleft a cloyingaftertaste, and his appetite was gonenow. He neatly folded the cellophane wrapper back over the remaining mochi and shoved them into the pocket of his jacket. Time to face the music, he thought warily as he waited for a gap in the traffic to start crossing the road. It should be easy enough; he rarely had assignments that did not entail bloodshed, and this one consisted of no more than a brief exchange of words, with a rather predictable outcome.

So why was he feeling edgy? Angrily, he shook his head. He was not uneasy, he told himself,merely annoyed about this waste of time...

He walked up to the little table and, without asking, pulled out a second chair to sit down opposite Yohji. Yohji lifted his head and gave him a glassy stare. And suddenly,Yohji's breath caught in his throat, green eyes blinked and widened in disbelief, and his gaze cleared as he tried to focus. His mouth slackened a little before he swallowed hard and slowly licked over his lower lip. "Ran?" A frantic whisper. "Is that..." He lifted his hand, trembling fingers with damp, parchment grey skin taut over sharp bones, and reached out to touch Aya's face.

Aya jerked back, and Yohji jumped, knocking his mug over. It shattered on the floor in a mess of coffee and shards. Clumsily, he pulled himself up to apologise to the girl who came to clean up, but he kept flicking anxious, almost panicked glances at Aya... as if he did not dare trusting his eyes, or as if he was afraid Aya would up and leave before another word was spoken. By the time she had swept and mopped the floor, Yohji dropped back into his chair and distractedly fished for his cigarettes.

His fingers were too unsteady to light up, so Aya snatched the pack off him, lit a cigarette for him and handed it back. He watched Yohji suck in some greedy lungfuls of smoke, the glowing tip of ash shaking as much as his hands, and wrinkled his nose in disgust. Yohji did not try to touch him again, but his gaze, raw and half-crazed, never left Aya. "You real?" he murmured after a long silence, his voice breathy, rattled.

"Aa. I am."

Yohji stared through a puff of smoke, and suddenly he turned away and tried to get up, only to fall back into his seat, his knees buckling beneath him. So he let his head sink to his chest, covered his eyes with one hand and stayed like that.

Aya saw traces of dampness trail down from beneath that long, scrawny hand, and shook his head. "It's pretty pointless, but I have to ask."

Yohji pressed harder against his eyes. With that hand that had been able to handle the deadly wire so expertly. Those fingers that could trace tender patterns on bare skin until it was hot and damp and tingling with arousal... hands that took pleasure in giving, coaxing, sharing, comforting ... "You left," he slurred, hardly audible, "you just left."

Aya bit his lip. These hands he had known awash with blood and sex, now were stained and grimy, with chipped nails and wasted muscles beneath sore skin. He felt a wave of revulsion rush to his stomach, settling there heavily. Good. It made things easier, for nausea was better than the desire to kiss... how could he ever have wanted this? This body,this hollow shell of a man... a MAN... Aya felt sickness roil in his guts, and had a hard time of keeping it down.

"Where did you go?" Yohji murmured, rubbing his eyelids. "Where on earth did you go?" He let his hand drop, and suddenly the green gaze hit Aya like a blow to the heart.

For Yohji's eyes hid nothing. The sea of pain Aya recognised as his own, the red rims, the wondrous expression. Free of accusation, full of questions, full of...

No. He saw nothing but dope and sin there. Nothing at all. "I had work to do."

Yohji swallowed hard. "Ah..." Aya could see that he tried to concentrate, thoughts milling in his fogged mind, his eyes swimming and blinking back more pain. "But... without a word? Why did you leave without a word? You'd just returned to me..."**1**

"I made a mistake."

Yohji wiped his eyes again, a slow, heavy motion. "I don't understand..."His tone was lost, even as he tried to gather himself, to scramble back to an appearance of normalcy. It struckAya as pathetic, ridiculous, and utterly pointless as he looked on indifferently.

Yohji shook his head. "Ithought you were dead. All those years, and I thought you were dead, and I had no idea what had happened, and..." And it had nearly driven him to distraction; he had declined Omi's offer to work for the new team and gone to search for a promise made a long time ago. Lead after lead turning out to be cold before he could track Aya down, untilhe had no money left and his contacts were exhausted. And Yohji found that in the process, he had used uphis enormous stash of hope,and with that went his strength and his laughter and the rest of his heart. It had left him empty. He had not wanted to contact Omi – at first because hedid not want tokeep killing for money, but later simply because he was unable to find his way back. No longer did he attempt to keep afloat. When he finally gave up, he went under like a rock in the sea.

"It was best for everyone," Aya said flatly.

"But where..." Yohji wondered again, as if talking to himself. His voice beginning to crack like a barely healed scab over a wound, with blood oozing through the fissures... droplet by droplet, dabbed off only to bleed more... a trickle, a stream, a sea of blood...

"To pick up on the contract I mentioned to you before you nearly got yourself killed," Aya stated frostily. "I had to earn a few bucks to pay your hospital bills. That's why I'm around, isn't it? To pay hospital bills."

"But-"

"I hated it," Aya said, his tone level, lifeless. "You should not have put your neck on the line for me. I hated being there, seeing you like that, bringing back every single memory I was trying to forget. I hate hospitals."

With wobbly fingers, Yohji lit a new cigarette. He took a few long pulls, his eyes closing for a moment before he made an effort to straighten a bit in his chair. "So what is it you came back for?"

"To see how you are. You are good at meeting expectations."

Yohji snorted listlessly but made no reply.

"You have settled after all," Aya noted, but his voice held a twang of sarcasm. "A home, a wife..."

Yohji drew a deep breath. For a few heartbeats, he said nothing, but Aya - used to studying his adversaries, to recognise the break that signalled fight - could tell the change, impalpable yet true nonetheless. When Yohji spoke again,he soundedquieter than before, and calmer. "Don't tell me you haven't done your homework, Ayan."

Aya had goaded him and expected defensivenss, anger, or perhaps something broken, a plea to let off, a wounded glance. He felt his heart wrench at the softness in Yohji's tone. Pity? No, Yohji had once told him there was nothing to pity in him.**2**. Compassion, perhaps. Forgiveness... yes, Yohji had always forgiven him everything, and Aya told himself that he hated Yohji for this, too. For always yielding too easily to Aya, with barely a struggle. For lov...

Nonsense. Aya sucked in a harsh breath. At least Yohji had not been audacious enough to use the intimacy of his true name again. Ran was dead, even though Yohji would never accept this. But then, he had always been stubborn like that, and a little thick too where Aya was concerned, as if all his instincts, all his self-defence had gone awol... making himself blind and deaf to danger. How very silly.

"I have," Aya spat, "and I would not want to spoil things for you."

"Ack." Yohji doubled over in a mock bow. "I'm undeserving of such consideration. C'mon, Ayan, spill it so you can get away from here."

Aya wrinkled his nose; Yohji would never cease to irritate him. "Fine," he said unwillingly, "Weiss are alive and seeking to reclaim their own."

"Man, Aya," Yohji mumbled heavily as he pulled himself up again, "cut the bullshit. Come to ask me to go hunting again?"

Aya snorted, his smooth mask slipping a little as the corners of his mouth pulled down into a derisive little sneer. "Aa. But I see I need not have bothered."

"Quite," Yohji said, with a surprisingly cranky edge to his tone, "'cos I'm done with it."

Mission accomplished, Aya thought as he rose and turned to leave, without bothering to reply.

Yohji leaned back and tried to glare at him, wary and misty-eyed. "Think I'm fucked up, Ayan, still so stuck up your pretty butt? Finally lookin' down on me and thinking how right you were all along? Why d'you never contact me? You were dead, Ayan! Fucking bloody dead, cold meat, that's what they told me!"

Aya froze. He COULD fight after all, couldn't he? How strange... so much hard work to get Yohji to fight him... how exhausting...a sudden wave of the old, familiar weariness washed through him, and he reached out to touch the table to regain his balance... justthe fraction of a second...

People began to shoot looks and whisper. Yohji did not appear to notice, let alone care. "Wasn't I worth a word at least? After you had my-"

Aya was by his side like lightning and covered his mouth with a hard hand. "Shut up already," he hissed and dragged Yohji up. "We should take this conversation elsewhere. We should not even have this shitty excuse of a conversation."

Yohji simply clung to him, draping his long limbs over Aya's solid frame, and lurched along. "Dead," he whispered as Aya dropped him on a bench at a bus shelter, dirty rain drizzling against plexiglass walls, and his eyes were huge and incredibly green as they met Aya's glare. "You've grown your hair... so beautiful..."

"Shut up."

"Aya... Ran..."

Yohji's head snapped aside from the force of Aya's backhand against his jaw. He gasped and sagged, wiping blood from his mouth – he had bitten his tongue. "Know what," he mumbled after a moment and lifted his head to look at Aya, "it's not worth it. I made my own life."

"I saw that," Aya spat, his strenuously kept cool starting to crack. He could not help it. He could never help it where Yohji was concerned; Omi had known that all too well, he could be sly, cursed be his persuasive ways. "I saw what you call life."

"And what? You got money? That makes you better? I shit on your money and your fuckin' attitude. Go tellthechibiI'm not interested. Good dog."

Aya felt his knuckles tingle and gripped his right hand with his left to keep from lashing out again. How did he know? But this was Yohji who always deceived everyone with his lax ways, just like Omi did with his sweet talk and fine manners. A glimpse of the old sharpness... of what had attracted Aya to him a lifetimeago... the fascination of watching sunspecks dance in dark water... Perhaps there was more if Yohji had not burned up his last braincells with coke or acid.

And suddenly, Yohji let his head dip back against the wall of the shelter and closed his eyes. Deflated, defeated, boneless. "Ayan," he muttered unsteadily, "you still here?"

Aya leaned against the shelter and felt a weariness settle into his limbs that took the edge off his anger. Yohji always made him flare up like this, mostly when he had let himself slump and insisted on wallowing in filth. Because Yohji was not supposed to be unhappy. Yohji was sunshine and warmth and an unquenchable lust for life. Aya had not wanted to see this, and now- "Aa," he said quietly, "I am."

Omi would have known and handled things in his very own, rather calculating chibi ways. He had wanted Aya to see for himself. Emotional blackmail, Aya thought without too much bitterness, whatever... had Omi tried before to pull Yohji from his stupor? Had he failed? And if so, how much resentment against Aya did he harbour? Omi was not as forgiving as Yohji, and they had been close. Yet he had helped Aya along, had sent him off onnew assignments... kept him working overseas, job after job...and ordered him back now. Aya shook his head. How confusing. He preferred things simple, black or white, good or bad. If one looked long enough, all colours faded. The world was simple like that.

"I tried," Yohji said, his voice low, rough, and tired. "I really did." A long pause, a gust of wind swirling dust and scraps of garbage about that settled in a small heap in a corner of the shelter.

Aya drew a long, slow breath, and then he went to sit down next to Yohji. "I cannot forget either." It would not make a difference. Yohji would wake up the next morning, suffering from a mighty hangover, and have forgotten about everything. He was good at that.

"I thought..." Yohji began unhappily.

And Aya, lifting a hand to trace Yohji's features, said quietly, "How can I love you if you are like this?"

**xxx**

Yohji turned his face away and covered it with his hand. He was still now, and Aya remembered... trying to fight his way out of a warehouse, with Yohji backing him up, too many guns against his sword and Yohji's wire; they still were caught on the second floor with the countdown for the explosives running already...

**xxx**

**Notes:  
****1 **See 'Winding Down – To live forever"  
**2** See 'Those Who Live By The Sword'


	12. Return To The Game 4

**After The Rain 3 - Return To The Game**

**xxx**

(Aya/Yohji focused. Memories.)

**xxx**

Memories... why do they always hurt? Aya wondered, listening to the rain needling against the clear plastic walls. Even sitting apart from Yohji, he could sense his warmth. Carefully, he examined in his mind how they had gotten here, onto this cold bench, sitting side by side like strangers in this muggy night. How Yohji had felt against his body, how he had slung his arms around Aya's neck... his weight making Aya gasp and grab him firmly to prevent him from falling onto the dirty pavement. It would not have been honourable to let him drop like this... and Yohji, for all his mouthiness, would never have dropped anyone of their team... always there when they needed him, as though he had a sixth sense for it, always dependable, his shifty ways skilfully hiding the firmness and determination beneath... Yohji had saved them more than once, in more than one way.

For Yohji had been light...

**xxx**

Ken and Yohji had been busy wiring up the entire place, and now Ken was waiting outside in the getaway car with Omi... Omi's voice through the earpiece, ordering them to leave, and then a burning stab into his thigh, fabric and teflon tearing, skin and muscle breaking apart, a wash of blood, blood everywhere, Yohji yelling his name, AYA, MAN AYA, OH SHIT, OH SHIT, OH GODDAMN FUCKIN' SHIT, a sudden numbness in his leg, then everything going blurry and muffled, Omi telling Yohji to get out, fifteen seconds left, forteen, thirteen...

Yohji gasping into the microphone, "No,can't leave 'im here," and Omi's voice getting louder, so loud it was piercing Aya's eardrums, GET OUT OF THERE NOW, it's gonna blow up any moment... Yohji swearing and sobbing then, "But it's Aya..." His hands tearing at wires, frantically ripping them off the charges nearby, then pulling down a steel cabinet, another one, the noise like thunder as it mingled with the thumping of Aya's pulse in his ears, the door of a walk-in safe, and then he wanted to scream in pain as Yohji grabbed his arms and hauled him behind the barrier of steel.

His head in Yohji's lap, Yohji's hands busy tearing a strip of fabric from his shirt to tie around his bleeding thigh... "I'm not gonna make it, chibi," Yohji was saying, tears running through dirt and blood on his face, bleach blond locks hanging sweaty and caked into his eyes, "wish me luck now, will ya?" Five, four, three... YOHJI! Omi was screaming, and then a wave of fire and debris ripped through the building, and night fell around them.

Crimson darkness. Yohji... light...

Yohji's still form on his bed, his room at the Koneko bathed in sunshine that washed through the open window along with the noise of the city. Omi's slight shape hunched on the chair by his side. Night and day. Aya could not bear going there. The fleshwound he had sustained neatly sutured and healing, his concussion fading quickly enough, andhe was recovering well from the bloodloss that had made him unconscious. After all, he was fit and young .

Yohji had been found draped over him, Omitold him as soon as Aya came round. Omi's tone level but eyes accusing and bitter, and he did not need to spell out the conclusion. Yohji's body had taken the brunt of the falling debris, of flying splinters, of fire and glass... that's why Yohji was in bad shape, and Aya wasn't. The way Omi said it left little doubt that, in his book, things should have been the other way round.

Aya.refused to set a foot into Yohji's room.

Even though Yohji had been stitched together afterhe and Ayahad been dug from the rubble and the makeshift-barrier of tangled steel,he was having trouble waking and sleeping and doing all the things a living body is supposed to do. But he could speak, slurring, vague, eyes searching, and he kept repeating the same thing over: "Has he been? Did I sleep, did I miss him?"

Omiavoided to answer his question.

When Yohji was well enough to swear and walk again, Aya slipped into his room while Omi was making coffee and Ken worked the shop. "You're anidiot," he told Yohji while helping him to sit, "a bloody fucked in the head idiot..."

Eyes redrimmed, Yohji made no reply.

"What do you want?" Aya hurled at him. "Everything comes at a cost, so what the hell is it you want from me, Yotan?"

"Wanna hear it, Ayan," Yohji choked out. "Just once."

"What for? You know. It's useless to talk about it."

"I know it in my heart, but I need to hear... to believe it, yanno? We nearly died back there... it made me think..."

"Don't think. You're bad at it."

"Aya..."

"No."

"But... I don't understand, Ayan."

And Aya put his lips to Yohji's ear and breathed, "Because it would be like slinging a noose round your neck, you stupid fool, and I cannot do this. I cannot tie you down like this. You have a chance, Yohji, of all of us, you are the one who still can get back to a normal life, and one day you will, I know it, I feel it... one day, you will leave me and forget me and start over, and that's fine, that's how things should be, and I have no damn right to tie you to this shoddy shit..."

"It is my choice," Yohji told him, with this infuriatingly soft smile on his lips, and those green eyes too sad for Aya's liking, too shaded, the light gone out and replaced by sorrow and loss... "It is my choice to be here 'cos what kind of normal would I be without you? I might as well be dead."

"Rubbish," Aya managed, even as his arms tightened around Yohji's shoulders. "You're babbling tosh, Yotan, and I hate you for trying to get yourself killed..."

"Then why are you here?"

"Why me?" Aya hurled back, torn by the pained tone in Yohji's voice, even as his arms held him with the force of a vice.

"And why am I breathing and shitting and eating?" Yohji gasped. "I dunno! Things just are this way. I love you. It's not gonna change. I'm not gonna forget you 'cos I can't."

"Things are... this way?" Aya wondered, fingerscurling in Yohji's hair.

"They are, aren't they? Tell me, Ayan... once at least?"

And Aya had moved so his nose touched the tip of Yohji's nose, and the words came as a rough whisper, meetingYohji's lips in a soft breath even as he felt like he was falling, falling, falling... "Aa, I love you, madly, beyond words, you're mine and I'd rather kill you myself than letting you go, ever..."

"Swear," Yohji breathed back, "swear..."

"I swear."

**xxx**

And then everything was over.

Aya sat wondering under the smudged plastic roof. Careless of the chill that seeped into him for he could sense warmth and closeness by his side, and when he turned his head, he met Yohji's knowing eyes.

**xxx**


	13. Return To The Game 5

**After The Rain 3 - Return To The Game**

**xxx**

(Aya/Yohji focused.)

**xxx**

Sitting on the cold bench at the shelter, they let the bus pass, then another. It grew chill as dusk settled over the city, and a vague drizzle of rain moistened the air. It smelled of damp dust, exhaust fumes and litter. The tarmac grew spotty with tiny raindrops that began to form bigger patches, melting into one another, darkening the street into a long, pothole-pitted, shimmering band of blackness.

"I better go," Yohji mumbled, gazing blearyeyed after the second bus that chugged away from the shelter, having dropped off a young couple who were in a hurry to get away.

Home, possibly, Aya thought with a pang of jealousy. Somewhere simple in this shoddy neighbourhood, warm and dry maybe, or perhaps dank and smelling of last night's dinner, but a place where they belonged. Even Yohji belonged, for the looks of it.

"Saw Kenken." Yohji fumbled clumsily for his cigarettes again.

"You smoke too much." So he had met Ken. Aya had the feeling he knew what Omi's next assignment for him might be.

Yohji laughed quietly as he managed to pull out the crumpled packet and shook out the last cigarette. He slouched against the perspex wall and lit up, then wiped the back of his hand across his face. As though he had painted a swath of light over his features, he brightened, relaxed, his mouth going a little slack...

Aya clasped hard fingers round Yohji's wrist and wrenched the cigarette from him. The soft paper hull tore, scattering fine brown crumbs over his skin. "What is that shit you're using?"

"Let go, Ayan. Please." Yohji's voice was way too soft for Aya's liking, his hazed, hooded eyes way too resigned. Aya sensed defeat, and it jangled his nerves.

"But I did," Aya grated, his fingertips pressing flushing marks into tired skin. "I let go, and look what happened."

"I've come crashing down," Yohji slurred as he began to drift into a drugged fog, "but I stopped killing, too."

Aya stared at him, into a vague smile that was high but knowing, and could not help but look down at the hand he still held captive. Fingers that had softened, old scars faded, the shadow of blood and murder hardly there any longer. An attempt at normalcy. Innocence reclaimed.

He thought of Yohji's flat. He thought of the place where he was staying, the hotel Omi was paying for him. The brightly lit suite of rooms, spacious, safe, glittering with mirrors and the soft trappings of luxury. Thick carpets, a marble bath, and a king-sized bed. Girls if he wanted them. The best food he could wish for, and people whose only job it was to discreetly wait on him hand and foot...

He always slept alone.

"Come with me tonight," he heard himself say, a sensation of wonder seeping into his mind that had disconnected from reason, from his tongue and his body. His grip on Yohji eased a little, but not quite enough to let him go.

"To do what, Ayan?" Green eyes. Deep, knowing. Not innocent. Heavy with memories and pain, but beyond this lay the sweetness of life, of sex and love.

"To help me remember," Aya breathed, his head thudding back against the wall. And to keep Yohji out of whatever squalor awaited him inside that flat he and this girl lived in.

"Gotta get home," Yohji said. "She gets worried easily."

"You're too soft."

"You're too cold." A swift, mean blow, delivered in the same quiet, drug-eased, almost conversational tone. "She's shit to you. I'm shit to you. That's okay, you can think whatever you like. Choices, yanno... you made one for me, and left me with the rest... nah... I mean, you'd gone and left me to figure what to do with the rest of me... the rest... aw, shit..."

"The rest of you?" Aya murmured, meeting Yohji's eyes again. Questioning, blurry green eyes. Did they light up when Yohji made love to that girl? Would his face flush and his lips open in this smiling 'ahhh' of awe and lust Aya knew so well? Would he smell of her and relish the deed?

"Aa," Yohji nodded, "'cos you'd taken this thing... ah, wait here, my soul with you, and damn near my head, I mean, my sanity as well." He broke away and dug around in his jeans pockets, found a few coins and sighed with relief. His bus fare.

"Why... did Omi not offer help?"

Yohji laughed, a little louder again, a true, easy laugh. "Don't need any, baby. I'm fine. I'm handling this, 'kay? No borrowing means no debt to pay."

"Aren't you ashamed living off a... paid woman?"

"You paying your way then? All alone?" Yohji winked and rose as the headlights of the next bus fingered round the corner at the bottom of the street. "Ah, now, shouldn't have said that, should I... sorry. I mean it, I'm sorry, Ayan. Look, if it makes you feel better, she does her job, I do the house stuff. I can't pull her out; they'll have her dead if she tries to walk, she's got debts to work off. An' I... well, I guess she likes me around." He paused. "She's just selling sex, Ayan."

Sex, not murder... so who are we to judge? Aya thought as he watched Yohji pass his splayed fingers through short blond hair and cast a quick glance at the approaching bus.

Yohji smiled, warm, broad, Yohji all sunshine, all honey and heat even when down and rotting in what had to be hell. It just had to be, Aya mused resentfully, the way he looked and smelled, and it did not matter a fig.

For this was Yohji whom he had tried to rip from his memories, and had only succeeded in tearing himself asunder. Omi had known. Omi had watched them both, kept them apart and together all the same, and now...

The bus rushed towards them, through shallow puddles and over wet tarmac, and pulled up, doors swishing open, pale light falling across the pavement, painting across Yohji's lanky body, shoddy clothes, hair spiky with dampness. And Yohji quickly bent towards Aya, brushing his lips over a pale cheek, and was gone.

Paying his fare and stumbling to the next available seat, on the far side, the blond head bobbing down as he sat, and out of Aya's view.

**xxx**

Omi's slim fingers strummed a hard, fast rhythm on the glass desk. He had invited Aya to meet at their previous rendezvous place, apparently still safe enough. And he was not happy. "The state he is in... I expected him to say yes."

Aa, once he saw me, Aya thought, but he was too numb to feel any resentment at being manipulated. He inclined his head. "Mamoru-san, perhaps... I took the liberty to search some of my contacts, and to suggest two possible candidates to complement a new Weiss team." He placed a memory fob onto the table. "The relevant data."

Omi looked at the fob, picked it up and began to toy with it, turning it in his hands, closing his fingers over it and clutching as though he meant to squeeze the data out of it by sheer force. An uncomfortable silence stretched between them, until Omi set the fob back and met Aya's gaze. "I would like you to approach Hidaka-san with the same offer. If you keep observing Yohji's address, you should have no problem running into him before long."

Aya lowered his head. Omi had done his research, ruthless like a Takatori and thorough like Weiss. Perhaps he had never let go of them. Freedom is but an illusion... what you know once, you cannot unknow...

The discreet bleeping of a mobile phone cut into the silence. Omi reached into the breast pocket of his suit and flipped open one of those tiny, expensive things encased in matte silver. "Yes?" He listened for a while, eyes downcast, face still, a habitual, empty smile on his lips. "Aa. Thank you. No, I do not want that, just hold off – hm? If they damage... excuse me? I expect you to honour our agreement. Of course, I would never imply anything else. No interference at all... because it will not be necessary; these things always end the same. Thank you. I appreciate this. Yes, to you too."

He clicked the phone shut and replaced it carefully before meeting Aya's gaze. "Yohji's girlfriend is having problems with her owners. It seems he is way too serious about her, and they don't like it." A passing sadness dulled his eyes for a moment before he blinked and shook his head. "Well, I believe this is it for now. I shall look at your proposals."

Aya stayed put.

Omi, about to turn his attention to the memory fob, looked up again with the faintest hint of irritation in his eyes. "Aya-kun?"

"He... he seems to need her."

Omi's lips thinned and whitened as the colour drained from his still too-gentle features. A long silence spread between them, until he put the fob into his suit pocket, rose to his feet and nodded at Aya. "I believe we are done, Aya-kun. Good luck with your assignment."

He strode to the door and slipped out without looking back. A little later, Aya heard the clinking of the lift bell, and then one of the goons peered into the abandoned office. "Fujimiya-san, are you alright? I have been asked to escort you out."

**xxx**

**Thanks to reviewers:  
**Hi, Elster, thank you so much for the nice review you left for my WeissKreuz stories - much appreciated! By the way, I know how it feels when English starts to fade... among other things.

So thank you again, as well as to everyone else who took the trouble to send me a few words. I shall continue not to pander to the prevailing mania for fluffy lovey-dovey soft(or hard)core stuff and stick to the rather depressing mood of the Japanese anime/manga. And to the stuff that I know will work... guess how my research is done... Off to find boyfriend now. No, Schuldig, that's not you, go find Yohji... or Brad... just someone, okay? Yes, I'm into red, just not now...

Cheers  
LoveyouHateyou


	14. Return To The Game 6

**Apologies, folks - this is a re-post because on uploading, I missed out a chunk that links this chapter with the previous one, so there was no continuity, making the flow of the story look a bit odd. Hope you like it now.**

Cheers  
LH

**After The Rain 3 – Return To The Game**

(Aya/Yohji centred)

**xxx**

So Aya went back to see Yohji. Unsurprised to find him at that place again, as dazed as before... or perhaps less, Aya thought fleetingly as he met those green eyes that held the faintest smile when he sat down opposite the blond. Another rainy day, another grey afternoon fading into evening, a film rewound and replayed, clapper, second take please...

When Yohji had drunk enough coffee and grey daylight began to melt away into muddy darkness, Aya saw him to the bus stop. They sat as the day before, in opposite corners, Aya perched stiffly on the bar that served for a bench, Yohji leaning bonelessly against the perspex wall. Aya linked his gloved hands. He felt a strange emptiness, all his rage and bitterness, raked up by Omi and Yohji again, had subsided... smoothed out, leaving him calm and cool inside.

No pain. He contemplated his mind with the awe of a child overwhelmed by an unexpected, precious gift, marvelling at the silence. How surreal that he should be sitting at an empty bus shelter, with only the rain and Yohji for company, and find that all his restless rage had gone. How strange that it should have vanished now, here, in the wet, dirty street, that the hollow sensation in his chest had eased, and he felt oddly... content?

Just to sit here, with Yohji. Who was dazed. Alive. Close. Aya drew a slow, deep breath and kneaded his hands a little.

"Aya," Yohji said, his voice brittle, a fleeting spark of something in his gaze. Hope?

No hope. Hope was a useless, dangerous luxury.  
Aya shook his head. "Don't get any ideas," he said flatly.

"Why d'you come back?" A short pause, then, slightly anxious, "Got orders to waste me?"

Aya turned his head to give Yohji a blank stare. "What do you think?"

"I think..." He lit a cigarette, briefly breaking away from Aya's glare to focus on the tiny flame dancing between his cupped hands, before looking up again, inhaling deeply. "I know too much," he said through a breathful of smoke.

He sounded oddly sober, and beyond the drugged mist, his eyes were attentive, curious even, scrutinising... It knocked Aya, and he hated this.

"And I find it hard," Yohji went on haltingly, "to forget. Anything."

"How stupid," said Aya, tone level.

Yohji gave him a smile.

Aya grew warmer, itching to tug his collar loose and barely able to keep his hands down, fingers firmly locked with one another. "Wipe that grin off your face."

Yohji sighed and shook his head, then he rose to his feet, swayed a little, grabbed the edge of the shelter wall and made to leave.

"Where are you going?" Aya said gruffly.

"Home." Yohji began to walk, no lurch towards the road. Traffic was still heavy, cars swishing past, stringy rain glittering in the melee of red and white lights. But Yohji did not launch himself into the stream of shimmering metal and smelly tyres; he meandered towards the bus that rumbled up to the curb with a flourish, and clambered in.

Aya watched him flop onto one of the seats near the door. Memories grinding in his mind of another day when Yohji had not been himself, walking right onto a busy city highway... to go to a park and view the cherry blossom...**12**

Aya stayed on the bench.

His glamorous hotel suite empty, the light and gleam of expensive fabrics and marble, of slick modern steel and marble, the luscious colours of silk bedding and drapes suddenly garish... reminding him of other colours he did not want to think about.

He leaned back against the perspex wall and stared into the rainy night. Wondered, too tired to fight it, whether Yohji had arrived at the dump he called his home, whether he was alright, and whether he would sleep with this girl tonight...

Aya swallowed hard, his hands clenching into white-knuckled fists. The stuff Yohji might have caught by having this... arrangement... he used to be more careful than this.

Something roiled in Aya's stomach. He linked his hands in his lap and let his head sink to his chest, trying to swallow the wave of nausea that was convulsing his guts.

Cars splashed past, tyres swishing on wet tarmac. The smell of exhaust fumes and damp dust thick in the air.

Aya felt heavy and empty. His cellphone bleeped, he picked up the call. "Hai." It was Omi. "Pick him up?" Aya asked, suddenly slightly breathless. "I see... I do not know whether this will be possible... aa, I will try." He flipped the phone shut and slid it back into the breastpocket of his coat, then he leaned back again and closed his eyes for a moment. It would be easy now... an excuse, a delay, another ending to another lifetime... even though Omi trusted him enough...

He missed the lone figure that slowly walked towards the bus shelter. Entering the circles of washed-out light the streetlamps cast on the rainglossed street, a long shadow, shortening then and melting away every time he left one of those pools of light to cross the sliver of semi-darkness, bridging the night to the next.

A pair of feet stepped into the shelter and shuffled around; then a breat of alcohol and cigarette smoke wafted over Aya, and he sensed the warmth of someone sitting down by his side.

He knew without looking up.

And when an unsteady hand settled on the back of his neck in a clumsy attempt at comforting him, he leaned into this touch with a desperation that shocked him.

"Man, Ayan," Yohji murmured, watching Aya slump against him. "Hey... is alright, yanno. No one's gonna get to you now... is okay."

"You're an asshole," Aya croaked out.

Bleary-eyed, Yohji managed a lopsided smile. "You're welcome."

"What are you doing here? Why did you come back?"

"'Cos that's what I do. Come back for you."

"Rubbish." Aya stiffened, straining away from Yohji, who held surprisingly fast. Old reflexes, Aya thought, almost glad, so there is still something left of him... "I've come after _you_. Why do you always let yourself go like that? Why do you need nannying? You're older than me. You should be grown up by now, but you never do. You refuse responsibility. You make it hard for me."

"Last time I checked, you kicked my ass out."

"Because you would not listen. You never listen to anything I say. I hate you."

"I know."

"I..." Aya's voice trailed off, and his hands clenched and opened restlessly, fingers lacing with one another and untangling again. He could not say it. No way. Not ever, for this would mean an admission of defeat, would it not... to Yohji no less, Yohji the pansy, the slut, the-

Yohji's smile softened a little. "Me too, Ayan."

Everything.

Before Yohji had time to react, Aya hooked his arm around Yohji's waist and grabbed hold of the hand that cupped his neck to hoist him up. "We get a cab."

Echoes... of that time that now seemed an eternity away, when Aya had collected Yohji from the park with all those cherry blossoms to haul him back to the Koneko.**1** And like back then, Yohji just slumped over him and let Aya sweep him away.

To pull him back... reel him in...

Yohji dug his face into crimson hair, breathed deeply the familiar bitter-sharp aroma of Aya's skin, and refused to think.

**xxx**

Yohji perched awkwardly on the edge of the couch in the spacious, carpeted lounge of Aya's hotel suite and tried to remember how he had arrived at this place.

Aya had not turned the light on, and through the floor-to-ceiling window opposite, Yohji could see the glittering lights of the nightly city, a sea of tiny colourful dots, sparkling, blinking on and off, some of them flitting about like fireflies…

The city deep below. Yohj wrapped his arms around himself. Ah, yes, Aya… Aya had insisted he come along, and he had been too off his head to resist. Had even walked back three bus stops, to be dragged into Aya's arms and into a taxi that spewed them out at the side entrance of the hotel. This surreal place, shiny, clean and discreetly scented, floating high above the bands and flecks of light. Above, beyond the dented skyline that served for a horizon where concrete and glass replaced green hills and the sea, shimmered a single star.

_It would be nice if we could fly…_

Now, who had said that to him, once? Down by the beach, near that shabby little diner… red hair… flaming hair, blown about and into his face by the bitter-salty breeze… Schuldig. Yes, Schuldig with his oddly off remarks, his thin, cold hands and waterbright eyes, and what was he doing in Yohji's mind now, he had no business there...

Yohji shook his head and brought his hands up to clutch at his temples.

"Headache?" A hint of expensive soap, a warm flush of air… he could never hear Aya move about, silent as a cat…

Warm, hard fingers unfurled his hand and thrust a cool glass into his grip. "Drink." A couple of white tablets were shoved into his mouth, and one of those fingers traced his lips as if by accident. "Yohji…"

He swallowed the tablets and obediently drank the water down in one go. The glass was taken from him and set onto the floor by his feet. Fine woollen carpet the colour of dark wine. A full, glowing crimson… "Yohji, do you want to sleep? You look bushed."

Yohji dragged his drooping eyes open and managed to lift his head that suddenly seemed to gain the weight of a lead ball. "Ra…" A break, a guilty smile, then wistful, "Aya. Aya…"

Aya had towelled his hair dry and gathered it between his shoulder blades into a loose ponytail with a single elastic band . He wore an almost sheer nagayuban woven of raw, undyed silk, tied loosely with a braided cord, the same pale shade of bony white. The cord rode low on his hips, the knot was tied loosely. The fabric whispered softly about neat, hard ankles; his feet were bare.

Small, firm feet. Yohji stared. Like birds, ready to fly, ready to walk, to run and step through katas lightningfast, precise and deadly... a pair of paper cranes... forever.**2**

"Yohji?" Aya's voice faded to a smoky murmur that sent a shiver down Yohji's spine, and he shook his head and covered his eyes with his hand, the other one clutching the bedspread. Costly silk, crunched by grimy fingers with dirty, chewed nails.

"Yohji, don't you want to look at me?"

"No."

A swish of fabric, a pair of hands sliding up Yohji's thighs and coming to rest near his hips. The sharp hiss of words that resembled the steel of Aya's katana. "I hate this. I hate you when you are like this." Those small, hot hands caressing, kneading, pleading...

"You… you're kinda repeating yourself," Yohji managed, trying to catch hold of his spinning mind. _Like catching sand with an open hand..._

"Because it never sinks in with you. You are childish. Stubborn and reckless." Anger was rising, a crimson flood in Aya's tone. Accusations. Blame. Cold, derisive, intent on hurting, even while his touch told Yohji otherwise. Seeking...

"And you're easy to tick off."

"Yesss!" Fingers clawed into Yohji's flesh, a sudden pain lancing sharply into his groin.

"Ouch! Let off, Ayan!"

Instead, Aya buried his head in Yohji's lap.

Yohji let his hands drop and stared down at Aya who kneeled in front of him, chest heaving as he made strange little noises that in anyone but Aya could have been sobs... in him, they were probably the echo of laughter, bitter and disdainful.

Aya, all white and red and burning beneath the layers of ice… Yohji could not breathe, the air around him as thick as glue. Time passing without meaning, before he tried to shove at Aya.

"Let off," Yohji muttered again, pushing against firm shoulders beneath soft fabric. Kneading hard muscles without even realising that his hands were wandering on their own accord, drinking in this touch, the heat of Aya's skin, the promise…

Nothing had changed. Hurt, anguish, fire…  
Want. Desire. Passion.

"Sleep with me, Yohji." A deep, husky hum against his groin, a hot breath through layers of clothing right to his clammy skin. Echoes of the past.**3** The knowing residue of innocence, a plea, spoken with quiet despair and lingering allure. Dark hair, dusky blue eyes…**4** and yet, and yet…

"But it's over, isn't it?" So why was he still struggling? Did it matter? Ran was dead. Ran had died a long time ago, and he had been unable to prevent it from happening. He had been doing penance ever since, and he had enough of it.

"Over…" Aya murmured, his hands growing feeble as he pressed them a bit firmer against Yohji's flesh. "You'd let me go like this…"

"You dumped me," Yohji said before his foggy mind could stop his runaway tongue, and then the words just poured out as though a dam had been breached, and he was swimming for dear life... drowning, struggling, fighting... and why, anyway? _Habit... mere habit..._ "But it was only logical. I'm long past being cross, Ayan. You were right, I'm just some slut, and it's never gonna work anyway, right? I mean, just look at you, look around – this place, that's just you. Expensive, pretty, exclusive. You're worth every single bit of it, and more. Me, I'm no match for you, and I'm not about to start all that shit again... like dragging you down into that mire." Pause, breathe, float calmly to the surface... "And you shouldn't go there yourself either, yanno." No, sink, let your lungs fill up with water, so cold, so cold, while looking up at the vanishing light and be at peace... Yohji could not decide, but... "I should never have... touched you."

"But you are good enough for Schuldig? You refuse me but you go out and fuck this son of a bitch?"

Yohji winced. "Look, Ayan, I'm no one's property."**13**

Aya's head snapped up as he caught hold of Yohji's wrists and shot him a glare. "Mine. You're mine, you hear me? Look at me, dammit!"

Yohji obeyed and went limp.  
For Aya had taken out the purple contacts, and Yohji met the dusky blue gaze of Ran.

**xxx**

Echoes…

Yohji was chasing after scraps of memories while Aya stripped him and nudged him into the shower, leaving a trail of grubby clothes behind. The water ran warm and steady over his skin, the marble tiles were cool, and he shivered as he leaned his brow against the bevelled glass of the shower surround.

Aya had done this before, but Yohji had never found out exactly what had happened that night because he had been too out of it, and the chibis remained resolutely schtum.**5** How odd that now, perhaps, Aya and he were replaying it. Did Aya know? Or did he give himself away unwittingly? Perhaps not. Aya tended to calculate his moves, didn't he…

Aya's hands spread shower gel on Yohji's shoulders and smoothed it over his back… stopping short from sliding lower. Firm fingers deftly kneaded shampoo into greasy bleach blond hair. Yohji kept his eyes open, stinging suds running over his face as he stared at wet tiles, the muted light of dimmed halogen spots pouring into his mind, a strange glow warming his body. The same scent that had clung to Aya's skin enveloped Yohji now, and the water washed away dirt and hunger and booze…

Pooling turgidly by his feet was his SIN.

With his cheek smothered against the steamed-up, dripping glass, he let his gaze drift down. His feet, rather large and slightly apart as he tried to keep his balance under those resolute hands… that seemed determined to scrub him clean, to cleanse him of everything… A pair of smaller feet shifting back and forth, one to his right, the other one between his own feet, a leg between his thighs, steadying him in a rather intimate way, and then Aya flipped him over so he leaned with his back against the shower enclosure and saw…

Aya, still dressed in his nagajuban, drenched with water.  
The silk clinging to his body like a second skin.  
Hiding nothing.

A dusky gaze, innocence long gone. "Yohji."

The knowing in those eyes did not belong there. To Yohji, knowing was purple. Latent heat beneath a shield of ice, deep within the smouldering promise of... He closed his eyes. "I wanna go home." ...hurt.

"Yohji, why did you come back? To the bus shelter?"

"You're one to ask…" Love.

"You're clean now."

"I need my clothes." Everything.

"They're filthy. I'll have them incinerated."

"They're mine." His alone.

"You cannot wear them."

"Aya, they are mine. Just give them back and leave me alone." To be alone...

"The hell I will."

"The hell you will," Yohji replied, rather lamely. His tone held no edge, he even smiled – a thin, wary smile. "I want my stuff back. Now." Alone, without hurt – how would it feel? Would Schuldig know? No, he would probably just laugh in this silly way of his, all mockery and angry pain, and wriggle out of an answer with some stupid aside. Schuldig did not like painful answers.

Echoes, echoes… of an argument more fiery than this little exchange, for back then he had been sober, and Aya had come after him with the katana.**6** What had it been about that time? Ah, Schuldig. Schuldig, again? Perhaps. Yohji shook his head like someone who was trying to shake water out of their ears, and stretched out his hand. "My rags, Ayan."

"You can have some of mine," Aya relented snappily.

"They won't fit. You're too short." This had always wound Aya up.

A brief pause, before Aya yanked at Yohji's arm to heft him out of the shower. He tore a bathrobe from a heated towel rack next to the vanity unit and tossed the garment at Yohji. "Here, cover up."

Impeccably white. Unsoftened, scratchy terrycloth.**7** So very Aya...

Yohji dug his hands into the thick folds. "But…"

Aya, dripping hair, crimson darkened to the colour of drying blood, transparent silk tracing his every contour. Dusky eyes sharp and glittering, his face studiously blank. Yohji tried to reconcile those eyes with the emptiness in Aya's face, and failed.

"Don't worry," Aya said blandly, "I'll get dressed in a moment. I have to go out." And as Yohji opened his mouth to say something, he shook his head. "To buy you something new to wear. You will pay me back later."

"I gotta try my clothes before-"

"I know your size. I'll get you something decent for once, so it won't matter whether there's a crease in your crotch or not." He had never liked Yohji's preference for tight and sheer.

"In my... Look here, Ayan, don't mother me. I know your taste: you haven't got any. And I'm tellin' you orange doesn't suit me."

Aya turned ashen and then flushed bright red.**8 **"Shut up. Shut the fuck up, Yohji, just this once, will you? Quit spewing all that shit at me. You…"

Yohji pressed the scratchy bathrobe against his stomach and looked at Aya, green eyes incongruously lucid. "I..." Lucid and very lost.

Aya swallowed hard. "You hurt me," he said quietly, the sharpness gone, the anger flared away, fallen to ashes already like cinder.

"You hurt me," Yohji replied softly. "Andstill... I shouldn't, really. I shouldn't."

They stood unmovingly, looking at one another, trying to find… something… Time slowed to a trickle, the shower dripping, drops of water counting the moments, heartbeats echoing in the hollow silence of the vapour-filled bathroom.

Aya's fingers were playing with the ties of the flimsy nagajuban that did nothing for his modesty. A long time ago… Yohji drew a low, deep breath, remembering Aya opening the door to his room to him… a grey yukata and naked skin… starched fabric sliding over a warm body and rustling to the floor, tatami mats; of course, Aya had his room covered in tatami mats that smelled of summer, of drying grass and a sunwarmed river when Yohji made love to him.**9**

"Yohji?"

Aya had been devastated afterwards. Distraught that he could have wanted it to happen, that he had made it happen. And when he managed to scrape himself back together, he had been full of hate and disgust for himself, his longings and his unruly heart that had been caught by Yohji… and was fluttering madly between long, hard, wire-scoured hands, like some panicked bird, delivered to Yohji's mercy… Aya had enough hate for Yohji, too. He would prove that no one would catch him, ever, and he spent much effort on showing Yohji more than anyone… Aya could be spiteful and creative.**10**

"It's not gonna work," Yohji slurred, hisgaze slightly glazed. "It never did, did it?"

A gleam in Aya's glance, like lighting on a summer sky. "You didn't try hard enough."

Yohji nearly laughed out loud, but the lump that swelled in his throat quelled the urge. "I didn't… I can't believe this."

Aya did not need purple contacts to glare.

"Okay," Yohji said, feeling more and more sobered, against his will and getting cranky about it. He had spent money on getting sloshed and high, and now Aya was spoiling it all, and he had wasted his cash for nothing. He bent and began to pick up his clothes with one hand, still holding the bathrobe to his middle with the other one. Bits of clothing falling out of his grip while he was ranting away and getting more worked up with every word.

"Okay, it's all my fault, I should have bloody died in that damn hospital**11** and that would have been it, so here you have it, and now stuff you, Ayan, I wanna go... damn sock... go home, where's the rest of my... ah, pants... and I hate you too, so you know; you're not the only one with issues; taking into account everything else, you're probably the one with the smallest balls of…"

He paused mid-movement as he reached for his shirt that lay just by Aya's feet. "Did I say that?" He looked up, green eyes clouded and unhappy. "Did I say I hate you?"

Aya's lips wore a bitter smile. "You have reasons." Of all people that Aya knew, Yohji was the only one who could have real reasons. Rightful ones. And lots of them - Aya could count them by the scars on the pale amber skin and on the ones that were not so easy to see because Yohji was good at hiding them beneath layers of sex and booze.

Yohji ran a bony hand over his wet hair. "But I meant… I meant to say…"

Aya folded to his knees opposite Yohji's crouching form. Dusky blue met shaded green in a long, searching silence. Then Aya stretched out his hand to cover Yohji's fingers with his, and he leaned over, watching Yohji's eyes watch him even as his lips touched, tasted, slowly, cautiously, not sure whether this was wanted, allowed… welcomed.

The taste of ashes.  
The flavour of defeat.

This was not Yohji.

Aya sat back on his haunches, his eyes widening, his breath pouring into his chest like boiling water... there it was again, this dragging sensation, the tightness around his heart... the doctors never found anything wrong with him, yet he was sure this was not how it should be. The doctors were fools.

Yohji broke away, shook his head and began to look around for the rest of his clothes. "I know you don't like rubber, so if you wanna fuck, you'll have to go elsewhere. You might pick up something from me that you don't want." He began to rise, not quite steady.

Aya caught his wrist. "I refuse," he whispered harshly.

Yohji blinked at him, a tad cross and without understanding. "Huh?"

"I refuse to believe that this wreck here is you. That you won't be careful of your health."

Yohji snorted; it was almost a laugh. "Health... since when... ah, bugger. Man, Ayan, there's booze to be had and other stuff you don't even dream about, and girls and guys… Unlike you, I prefer to live my life."

"You call that living?" Aya spat, without raising his voice. "Fine. So you live. But I know you're lying because we've had you checked out. We have your medical records, along with every scrap of your rotten existence, down to the kind of condom you use and the toothpaste you prefer. I know which porn title you hired two nights ago from the sleazy shop down the street, when you piss and what you eat, and that you fuck no one apart from this girl." He paused, before jabbing home, "And I doubt that you even manage that much, the way you are now."

Yohji grew a shade paler; he bit his lip and began to pull on his jeans. Aya watched, then he got up and walked to the bed. A moment later, he was back at Yohji's side and held a packet of cigarettes out to him, along with a lighter. "Here. The brand you used to smoke." Not the rubbish he could afford now.

Yohji stilled, then slumped into himself and covered his face with the splayed fingers of one hand, the other one still trying to close the fly of his jeans.

Aya's fingers shook as he lit a cigarette. Hesitantly, he slid his arm around Yohji's shoulders. Wet silk, slowly drying, cool on warm skin. Ivory on caramel. Muscle moulding against muscle, in long-sought familiarity. Yohji did not look up when he took the cigarette and pulled deeply, and Aya gathered him close, pressed him hard and held him tight enough to squeeze the air out of him.

"I missed you." Hot lips burying kisses in damp hair. "I missed you. I missed you."

"I… home," Yohji tried weakly.

Aya's arms held fast. "Aa, you'll go home alright," he murmured, "tomorrow. Tomorrow you can go home, I'll even take you there. But now you're in no shape to go anywhere, aren't you, and I will have to get you some clothes and something to eat, just look at yourself."

"Aya…"

"Mine." A low growl deep in Aya's throat.

"Aya!"

"Just rest. I won't try anything." A small, breathless pause, then, "Please, Yohji. Let me take care of you, just this once before you... leave again."

"I never left," Yohji protested quietly.

"No, of course, you did not," Aya consented quickly, but his arms did not loosen. "But I can help you get better, you know that, don't you? Please. Rest awhile."

And Yohji, worn out from fighting, drunk and buzzing with the renewed thrill of being close to Aya, let himself be undressed again and tucked into a silken bed too large for one alone.

**xxx**

**Notes:  
1** See 'Finding Stillness'  
**2** See 'Winding Down – Trapped'  
**3** See 'Addiction'  
**4** See 'Winding Down – Transformation'  
**5, 12**See 'Finding Stillness'  
**6** In the runup to 'Seasons Of Love'  
**7** See 'Addiction – Clothes'  
**8** In my version of the boys and their world, the orange sweater was a present from Aya's sister.  
**9** See 'Addiction – Sex (Not Quite)', and the last chapter  
**10** See 'Those Who Live By The Sword', 'Monsters', 'Winding Down – Trapped'  
**11** See 'Winding Down – Full Circle, To Live Forever'  
**13** See 'Magic Words'


End file.
